Going Home?

Last night, I boarded a plane in Los Angeles bound for Chicago. Although it was a late flight, it was full. I wedged myself into a window seat and was soon joined by a gregarious, jovial man. We exchanged pleasantries and buckled in. As the jet pulled away from the gate, he turned and asked:

“Home or away?”
“Home” I answered, “And You?”
“I’m going home, too.”

I suppose he must have seen the weariness in my face. It had been a very long day. He put on his earphones and chuckled merrily along with the video presentation. I pulled out The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and lost myself in Kundera’s poignant mysteries. I paused a while to lean my cheek against the window and gaze out. Outside all was darkness, with just a few lights here and there shimmering miles below. Some of those were houses…some of those were homes.

I had not been completely honest with my seatmate. I wasn’t really going home. I wasn’t sure where I was going. My heart was wandering in exile somewhere in a dark prairie, my mind was floating in the clouds at 39,000 feet, and my body was heading to Chicago. Hours later, in the early morning, I would enter a house. I secretly hoped my new-found friend would, at approximately the same time, open a door, cross a threshold, and enter his home.

Everyone needs a home.

* * *

Love Song: I and Thou
By Alan Dugan

Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that one moment. Then
it screamed and went on through
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

* * *