On the Road Again

Where this co-writing gig takes me from time to time, and why I'm always ready to go home

For the last few days, I’ve been staying in a guest house in Fort Lauderdale, working with a client on their story. Behind the guest house, which is lovely, is a narrow dock that runs along a channel that, should I hijack one of the boats moored here (and learn to sail), I could make my way out to the Intracoastal Waterway, a 3,000-mile inland path of water that would, in theory, allow one to travel by boat from Massachusetts, along the coast, to Brownsville, Texas.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you’ll be swept off to.”

The Lord of the Rings

Life is a stop on a cosmic intracoastal waterway. Where will this irresistible current lead us?

There are a lot of intriguing places in the world, and it’s easier than ever, these days, to get swept off to them. This week, I sat on that dock in the cool morning breeze and watched boats go by, listened to the rasping of palm fronds over my head, heard the rat-a-tat-tatting of a distant woodpecker, and took in the smell of the ocean not too far away.

It’s a smell that reminds me of when Maile and I were first married, and we lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and we had not even the slightest idea of what we had gotten ourselves into or what waited for us in the years ahead. Thank the Lord. The older I get, the less I have any desire whatsoever to know what the future holds.

But those were touching and innocent times, too, those early days of our marriage, when it was the just the two of us, so much quiet, so much stillness. Lots of Scrabble. Way too many milkshakes. We were only getting to know one another, really, a knowing that has continued to grow and expand and resurface.

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So, here I’ve been, enjoying the weather, the work, all the things that make this place what it is.

But I’m also incredibly ready to go home. It’s not a homesickness really, at least not the way it was when I was a kid and would cry to go home from a friend’s house when the dark of night arrived. Now that I’m 46, homesickness is more an ache for the place and the people where I belong, where I fit.

When I spoke with Maile this morning on the phone, she told me about last night, Cade’s first evening home from his freshman year of college, how she tasked the kids with cleaning up the dining room and kitchen after dinner, per our usual routine. And how all of them got to work without complaining (surprise!), how they were laughing and joking around, and taking turns choosing the next song, and how good it was to hear all of their voices tangling together, no one missing, everyone under the same roof.

And how our 8-year-old Leo said, “I’m so glad Cade is home,” and then, “When does Dad come back?” Maile told him I’d be home Friday night, and he responded, with some relief, “Oh, good. Then we’ll all be together again.”

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

James Baldwin

What makes home feel like home to you?