BRINGING IN THE OUTLAW

A while back, Brandon and I were driving to Wichita to visit my family. We listened to Spotify as we flew through the Flint Hills, and after a while, it occurred to me how often the word "home" was showing up in the lyrics. I asked Brandon if he'd created a "home" playlist. He looked at me as if I'd suggested he were ovulating.

But then he couldn't help noticing. At home with you, going home, I miss my home. Before long it became a joke. We'd listen intently, thinking the pattern had ended. Then here would come that magic word, making us laugh harder every time.

True, it's not like those songs all just so happened to feature the word "lager." Home is a universal human concept.

And I'm sure it's especially on the minds of the musicians who write those songs, often spending months far away from the familiar. I've never been away from home base this long in my life—I even lived at Mom's house during college—so this last month or so has been a time to think about what home means to me.

For many years, making a steady home for my children was a top priority—the top priority. Children go to school, and an entire set of life circumstances goes along with that. A good job, to pay for a house, to be near the school. Shelter and food need to happen every day, but that school needs to happen in the same place every day. So roots become critical to life.

Now that one son is in NYC and another plans to go to LA, the need to have a place for them has vanished. I already sold the family homestead in the suburbs, so there will be no Mom Museum that they can visit during the holidays. They still need my advice and support, emotional and sometimes financial. I still need to know they're happy and hear their stories. And I can fill those needs through texts and FaceTime conversations, through visits to them, or bringing them to me. Wherever I am.

So what is home now?

For weeks I lived in other people's homes. I put my clothes in their clean empty dressers, dried off with their towels, cooked in their pans. Dressers, towels and pans work the same wherever you go.

I garnished those spaces with my books and journal, my computer. the teddy bear I made with my niece Lucy. And of course the simple version of my clothes and jewelry wardrobe belongs only to me.

With those details to make the spaces my own, I've felt completely "at home."

And if you've been to my house, you've seen what a magpie I am, filling my nest with things I like to look at every day. But I'm struck by the idea that I could just walk away from them. Those things aren't home. They're the version of home I've created, but I find that I am not lost without them.

I mentioned the time that song writers spend away from the familiar. Think of that word, so close to familial. That's what home means, in the end. Your people. And there is no substitute for being with them in person, but since they are not all in one place, you can't be with them all the time anyway.

Brandon and I are headed back to KC, to the house he opened up to me when Will went to school in August. In many ways that space feels like home. But in some ways I feel homeless.

Explaining that idea to you right now is proving to be more than I can do. It reminds me of a drawing Jake created, a self-portrait filled with intense colors and complicated line work. He told me that's how he felt at the time. I wanted clarity in my language, in words. "Really honey, how did you feel?" I asked him.

He looked at me for a moment, pointed at the drawing and said patiently, "Like that."

I feel like that. But I don't know how to draw it.

I thought after weeks of being away, I'd be ready to go back. I love being with Brandon. And I love spending time with you, my friends and family. But I honestly feel like I could just keep on going.

I'm sure that after crossing a big, flat lonely state, Kansas City will be a sight for sore eyes. I hope the leaves are starting to show. I'm ready for a new beginning.