Lights will guide you. . .

Home. Home is more than simply a place or a building or where you rest your head—Home is a drive through the rolling hills of middle-America; past orchards and cow fields; through forests and over rushing creeks and streams. Home is nestled just off a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a hill; tucked against an open expanse populated by daydreams, bobsled runs, and tadpoles. Home is the steps up to the attic from my childhood bedroom closet, and the way I could waste countless hours hidden there, alone with my imagination. Home is the smell of chili cooking in the kitchen, fires in the fireplace, and football on the television. And home is enjoying that chili after a long day of hiking in the woods.

Home is the feeling you get when you’re in the last fifteen minutes of your four hour drive to see your long-distance boyfriend. Home is the smell of exhaust on the bridge as you wait to enter the city you long to be in. Home is the way the sun glistens on the fall leaves rushing past your car, catching the light of a sunbeam as your little car tugs its way up the familiar back road into the city. Home is a large parallel parking space waiting for you, and the soft tapping of a fingertip on your car window before you’ve even had time to turn off the car and gather your things.

Home is the awkward sqwauk of a heron taking flight from the end of the dock and the complete silence you hear when you try to fall asleep. Home is the morning sun cascading through the kitchen, blinding you as it bounces off deep blue granite. Home is the feel of cool cherry hardwood floors on barefeet in August, and the dust on the porch in the pollen-filled spring. Home is the cackle of teenagers being pulled on a tube past your house, and the quiet slap of a kayaker’s oar on the water. Home is watching the sun settle in behind the clouds while trolling the boat around the last corner of the lake, and trying not to speak while my father guides the boat on to the lift just past dusk.

Home is a living room filled with laughter of a family engaged in a marathon of board games, and home is a stocked refrigerator, full pantry, and open bar. Home is the dog rushing out of the door to great you when you arrive, and home my father’s knowing eyes watching through the window as I pull away to leave again. Home is the way your heart warms when surrounded by loved ones, and the way your heart hurts when you are away.