Home.

 A really nice perk of living here in IL is that I can drive to Buffalo in just about 8.5 hours.  To some, that might seem like a long drive, but after years and years of making the trek from Austin to Buffalo (24 hours), it seems like nothing.  It is about a boring a drive as you can think of; IL looks like IN looks like OH - prairie grasses, farm houses, speed traps.  PA is just Erie and there's nothing to see there.  When you hit to border of NY, things start to change.  Hills, vineyards, more trees, different trees, green and lush, verdant and bucolic.  It is a visual encouragement that I am almost there, almost home.

It is funny how you can be away from a place for decades and still call it home.  I lived in Texas longer than I lived in Buffalo, but Buffalo is still home.  I feel it when the roads I am driving feel familiar, when I drive past the house I grew up in, or when I bite into pizza that tastes the way pizza should taste.  It is seeing Bills flags flying from porches, knowing any restaurant I eat at will have great food, and hearing that Buffalo accent fill my ears. If Midwest Nice is a thing, Buffalo Brash is also a thing.  People say it, they mean it, it might hurt, but they'll clap you on the back and invite you over at the same time.  It is wild and wonderful and, after so many years away, can be startling before it is soothing.

always soothing

This last trip, all of my siblings and their children and one of mine were there at the same time.  What an absolute joy to see all of them mostly at once and laugh and talk and gather. We love each other and drive each other crazy.  We talk over one another and hurt each other's feelings.  We compete, as we have always competed, to be seen and heard and acknowledged. We remember stories and share new ones.  This gathering was loud and full of food and words.  So many words.  

Words always make me think of home because my mother has always loved words.  Crossword puzzles, Scrabble, reading, using big words because she could; that love of words passed on to each of us.  I think this is why it is so hard now to watch her search for words, common words and names, when she is talking.  To watch my mom who always had something to say, who would do a small dance at the table when she knew she was hitting hard with a triple word score, sigh and close her eyes and try to make the word appear in her head.  Sometimes it does, or sometimes we can find the word for her.  Often times, it doesn't and she sighs.  She is anxious a lot and she is frustrated a lot and I am so, so sad as I watch the way words seem to fail her in a way that they once defined her.  

Words are also failing my dad in that he just cannot hear them.  He used to love to tell a story, tell a joke, share words with others, and laugh.  The kids all laughed about how when Papa sends them a text, it is more like an email with paragraphs.  He still has words, he just can't hear others use them and it can be challenging to have a conversation with him.  It also means that if there is anyone else in the room, you are for sure having at least two separate conversations at once.  This can make even the most avid word-lover at a loss for her own words.

My brother and sisters and I struggle as we recognize the rapidity of our parents' aging.  I think we also struggle with and how we define home now.  Home used to always be my parent's house on Aurora Street. Home was us crowded around their kitchen table laughing and drinking coffee and tripping over words.   That sense of home, once defined by our parents, is now left to us to replicate and warm. We seem to be doing it though. I feel it in my sister's house where she gathers us and feeds us.  I hear it in my other sister's voice when she calls and we share stories.  I relax in it at my brother's house where we can sit and not talk.  I see it in my son and his cousins in how they treat one another after so many years apart.  It is there, it just looks different.

It is hard to see and recognize the shift in what we remember as home. Or the changes in the people who were once such solid forces in our lives. As someone who has lived in many different homes in different states, I know that the feeling of being home takes different forms.  Buffalo is home, Austin is home, being together with my kids is home. Home is being celebrated and called out, home is being our best and our absolute worst and still being welcome, home is an idea held in your heart and shared with others.  And I am ever so lucky because after driving 8.5 hours back, stepping into my person's arms and being held so tight felt just like home too.