Mom and I drove home today, from Long Island, and it only took us an hour to get lost in New Jersey. Have I mentioned recently how much I hate New Jersey?

I hate New Jersey a million 98% humidity days. Yeah.

So we were lost in New Jersey, and my mother’s insufferable TomTom kept giving us directions that were more obscure than instructions James gives me while playing video games.

Turn right in one quarter mile while staying left.

Stay left.

Stay left.

Turn right NOW.

In fifty feet, exit left while staying right.

Three times we whizzed right past our exit because there were either three exits back to back to back or there was not an exit, at all. Several times the TomTom thought we were either on a road below us or above us, because apparently it couldn’t differentiate on the multi-level turnpikes. Which is all New Jersey had by means of travel-ways.

So. Seven hours later, we were home. And the drive is always roughly five hours. Sometimes five and a half, depending on how bad traffic is, or how bad we have to pee. SEVEN HOURS IN THE CAR WITH MY MOTHER, Y’ALL. And we’re both still alive.

Tonight, I went for a run. I used to find zen and peace when I’d run the old country roads of my home neighborhood. There’s something magical and healing in the dusk light, with the reeds jumping about, dancing in the wind. The lake laps at the shores and the crickets erupt in this symphony of song as you move past, the perfect string orchestra against any track my iPod can find.

It took me a minute to find it, but as I ran by the tall, bowing cattails and saw the sun kiss the trees goodnight, there it was. My Home. All the noise and the clutter seeped from my body, left itself strewn along the gravel roads as my steps echoed through my bones.

Forward, forward, forward.

I opened my mind and the ideas for my writing started to sprout, grow into one another… bloom. I meditated on James, and how a couple days apart seem like an eternity now. I’m huddled Upstate so I can get my writing sample done. I was so cluttered mentally for so long that I wasn’t sure on the way up if I’d find the space I need to, to get it all out onto the page.

And I was wrong. It’s been here all along and I just needed to take the time to get back to my roots again. To get my head above water. To stop. To look. To feel.

To breathe.

The wind ran its fingers through my hair and the spray kissed my cheeks and the light burst back into my eyes. My soul stirred again, smiled.

It was exactly what I needed. I’m so happy to be Home.

-MM.