Hi there, come on in.  I know the place is a mess, care to help clean it up?  There's a glass or two of cheap Zin in it for you.  I've a few other varieties, as well as some beer, soda and coffee.  It does smell good, doesn't it?  What?  Oh, I'm sorry!  Second door on the left ... just yell if there's no toilet paper, I watched a sad movie just before I left last time.  Don't worry, I have some more somewhere.

Who's taking on the music duty tonight?  You know I can't since my hands will be full of your words as I place them in my heart.  Full-time job, that.  Anyway, I'm off to find some plastic glasses and some paper plates for the crackers and cheese.  Anyone want peanuts?  No, I've got it.  I'm afraid a trip inside the frig is called for - and you know what that means.  Give me a few extra minutes to hunt down the goggles and gloves.  Don't let the green glow worry you ... I've decided it's good for the skin.  Hmm?  Sure!  The ugly blue chair has your name on it, just save me a pillow and a spot at your feet.

You know, they say that you can never go home again.  Have I said that before?  Sometimes it feels like I've said everything before.  What is home, though?  Does it exist in a place or a place in time?  I wonder.  Consider your childhood memories ... take a moment and turn back the clock.  All the way back, until the years melt away and you're much shorter than you are now.  Much less jaded, much less inhabited by worry and fret, fear and uncertainty.  Picture your front door.  You know the one.  It was what you aimed for when you were tired and ready to be warm again - even in the fiercest heat of summer.  Where you headed without a conscious thought when you were hurt, anxious, scared.  Behind which was all you knew - your world in a few hundred square feet.  Did you have that?  Or was it a dream that eluded you, a wish that never came true.  A mirage of a distant island that others inhabited yet you could never reach no matter how hard you swam.  No home to be found there.

Grow up again - there you go.  Is home where the heart is for you now that you're taller?  Do you have that front door that you used to crave, or fondly remember?  Or is home with the person you love, no matter where they are.  I wonder.  I wonder if home is more about the feeling than the building, more a place to believe in than to simply exist.  Personally, my home, my living room, has followed me through the years.  Furniture changes, carpets become bare floors and grass turns into sand.  Songs of crickets morph, tree frogs are silenced, lightning bugs cease to flash their musical morse code.  Then I turn ... close my eyes and time brings them back.  Only they are different, new, oddly familiar while strange to my newfound eyes.  To me, home is what comforts me.  Wraps me in a blanket and offers a cup of hot tea.  It changes with me and yet stays exactly the same.  Because I believe that home is love.  As long as love is waiting for me, wherever that may be for that moment ... I'm home.

Okay, I'm coming!  Impatient much?  Stop laughing at me - just look how smooth my skin is!  Actually, I like the greenish color, it suits me.  Good grief, John Denver?  Who dragged that out?  I'm sure a complete stranger wandered in while I was gone and added that to the collection - really.  Stop it, I'm not blushing.  That's just what happens when the frig residue mixes with soft light.  Fine, then.  I happen to love this song ... "Take Me Home, Country Roads" ... reminds me.  What is home for you?