Home

I recently took a walk through my neighborhood, with my trusty walking stick in hand, just for exercise, and because moving keeps me from being cranky.  Anyway... I noticed that everyone was out mowing their lawns, or blowing leaves from the front yard, constantly maintaining the outside of the houses.  My main thought was why would anyone want to have something that large to take care of.  I'll admit it, I'm lazy.  I don't want leaves to rake and grass to mow and ivy to cut off the house side.  I've always said that I would be perfectly happy living in a small apartment, or an out of the way fishing shack.  I remember driving down 212 on the way to Milledgeville seeing a log cabin type house right next to Lake Sinclair, and I thought that would be the best place to live, out of the way of the world (well, it was next to the highway), and next to a lake.  Just give me a broadband line to the Internet and I'd be all set.  Or another "house" I remember seeing... I was jumping on the trampoline with a friend of mine in Milledgeville, off in the middle of nowhere, and next to the trampoline was a small trailer/house that couldn't have been more than a bed, a table, a kitchen and bathroom, all in the same room, it seems like.  Probably no bigger than my bedroom. I asked Marcus what that was, and he said that someone lived there.  I'd be happy there, as little as it was to take care of.

And all these houses, spread out everywhere in my neighborhood, with all that work that goes into it, wouldn't people be just as happy in apartments? Wouldn't Le Corbusier have loved to make the housing for an entire city, leaving the land to be used for leisure, education, preservation, natural living? Or people living in those places underground, with the same intents for the land.  I'm not an environmentalist, by any means, but I see the construction of new buildings and houses and Publix shopping centers (that in a later blog) and I get depressed.  All that wonderful forest land being toward down just so we can put up another box.  It's not worth it.  Why don't we let the forests be, and be a world that lives with the world that we have been put on.  I mean, Earth is our "Home," for the most universal meaning of the word.  It's where we live, and keeping the natural beauty of this planet is very important.  I mean, we could take everyone in my neighborhood, put them in a tall building, both above and below ground, give them wonderful apartment spaces for the cost of the houses they currently live in, and return that space to the trees and animals.  I mean a huge building, with fireproof protectors since I know that every apartment building in Atlanta seems to catch on fire.  And below ground would be the commercial section much like the Metro area in Washington DC, and away from the building would be a school and church, partnered with the outside world.  I know I've said these things in other blogs (click on the label for Le Corbusier at the end of this blog).

So what is "home?"  Why should the people want to own houses?  I know that Locke used (paraphrased) the idea of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_happiness for the evolution from Locke's statement to the Declaration of Independence), and the stacks of people living in shanties in London and in Europe was far different from the wide open spaces that the colonists found when they came here to America.  Here, owning a piece of that vast country became everyone's dream. To have a house, to have the freedom and privacy, it was engrained into the very core of living in the United States. And to live in a country where the government couldn't take that freedom or privacy away from its citizens, that's where "home" becomes very important.  Democracy allows for the houses to be built, for the dreams to be realized, and without this, the walls won't keep anyone, be it the mobs or tribal kings, the governments or the terrorists, the churches and the kings, from entering and taking at will.

(Look up Winslow Homer's paintings for ones like this at the right. He painted rustic American and Carribean scenes during the late 1800's when urbanization drove people into the cities and away from the small towns, but also at a time when Manifest Destiny drove people west throughout the Plains and into the West.  It reminds me of the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889, when settlers sought out land to build their own houses and farms.  I participated in a mock land run at my Elementary School in 1987 before I moved to Georgia.)

The American Dream.... for everyone to own a home.  Forgive me if I think people took that too literally.  We all had to own a home, no matter what it took, or what legislation had to be brought forward for the banks to give everyone a loan to own a home.  Obviously, that didn't work.  And now there are a bunch of empty houses all over the place while those that were living in them are now stacked up in apartments, if they're lucky, or living in the basements of their parents, or worse.  All because they thought that the absolute necessary thing for them to do was to own a house.  And I've heard my brother talking about houses he's been in, to answer false alarm calls on security systems, huge houses where all they have are a couch and a TV (flat screen, of course), and a bed in the bedroom because they can afford nothing else, other than the cable and the utilities and the mortgage payment which is ridiculously high.  And this is their dream.  And people "occupy" the banks in New York City and elsewhere demanding that the banks "give" them homes, which makes no sense, because such things have to be earned and owned.  A dream is not an entitlement, not a right, not something to be handed out to every soul on this earth.  The people who designed the papers by which we govern this country gave us the right to pursue that dream, not necessarily that we would find it.  Property is not the goal to that dream, just part of it, because the true dream is that of freedom.  And that is something that a house cannot give you, not by a long shot.  In fact, a lot of people will find that owning a house is the very opposite, a jail, a nightmare, not something that gives freedom. 

Freedom transforms the inside of the mind, breaks down the walls that keep us locked into ourselves.  Owning a house, being able to do whatever you want inside that house, that is truly freedom, I guess.  But if doing so causes more trouble than it's worth, is it truly freedom?  To me, give me a one room shack someplace and leave me to my own devices, and I'll be free.  Give me a corner of this world, and, given a good book and the Internet as my playground, I shall be more at peace with my surroundings than those who live in mansions.  And further, give me the freedom to do what I wish in that space, to come and go as necessary, without question or critique, and it will be bliss.  For the American Dream, I think, is not the actual property that you own, but the state of mind that you are in when there. 

A friend of mine asked me what "Home" is.  What was "home" to me.  It took me no time at all to answer that home was in my apartment in Milledgeville, for the 6 months I lived there.  That was a time when I had total freedom to do whatever I wanted.  I worked at the grocery store, drove to the park and took walks around the lake, went to Lake Sinclair and swam, stayed up at night watching TV and made it ice cold in the summer and dry and warm in the winter.  I washed my dishes, cleaned my house, did my laundry, all the things I was supposed to do.  My apartment was always clean, and I had pride in it.  Because it was mine.  Not that I owned it, but that I could truly be myself, without any masks or restrictions.  "Home" is a state of mind. 

I would also say that home is where you are most comfortable.  I would say that, for a time, Borders was home, during the time that Jeremiah was our GM (and I know people will disagree with me on that), but I felt as if I could be myself almost completely there, and I was happy working like a well oiled machine.  You know that feeling when you watch Star Trek: TNG when everyone is clicking, and you feel that it would be a perfect working environment?  That's what I felt like there.  There were no parts of the machine that were off, rusting away.  That is Home.  It's the place you go to where you don't want to be anyplace else,  and would be content to be there for all eternity.  Home is as close to Heaven on Earth as you can get.  But the one thing I learned from all the places I've been, is that Home is a transient state.  Home can never stay in one place for very long.  After 6 months, I had to move out of my apartment.  After 6 months, Jeremiah moved back to Maine and was replaced with the bankruptcy of the company and other managers that didn't work out as well. 

Home is, for some people, a place where there are other people.  As Billy Joel sang, "Wherever we're together, that's my home." And for others, like me, I'm perfectly at home when I'm alone.  Freedom comes in solitude, for there is no society or government to define the rules, only those

that reside in the mind.  Self-regulation becomes that which defines walls.  My grandmother always says that "Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in."  In a land of solitude, there is no one to keep you out. Would that I be Thoreau sometime in my life, and live in a cabin where I wouldn't have to see anyone for days, even as my mind wanders about the universe.  I will not deny that people need each other, and I certainly do need the people in my life, those at work or here on the Internet, but for true "Home-ness," for true freedom, that is done alone.  Or, I guess, with someone that you love.  Yes.  I think Billy Joel talked about that in his song.  Because Love goes with Home in a very personal way.  A home is shared by two when they can be together and still be free, when the walls are knocked down between the two.  The threshold becomes crossed then, and two homes become one, to mix some cliches. 

So that is what Home is.  It's Freedom.  It's a state of mind.  It's being alone and unencumbered by the world.  It's finding someone to share that freedom with you, without prejudgements or opinions, and living, beside the fire and in front of the screen, and being content.  Yes, home is a place where you can be content, and, as fleeting as that is, hopefully, everyone can find a place they call home, for it will sustain them through all their journeys. 

The Science Building of Perpetual Twilight

Twilight seemed to hang over the Science building at Georgia College in Milledgeville. Some sort of perpetual gloom that I never quite understood.  Even when my Chemistry 101 classes were held at noon, I went inside the building and felt it was always dusk.  Perhaps it was the colors of the walls and the seats, oranges and dull yellows from the 70's when they were popular, or maybe it was the slowness of the elevator, one of the slowest ones I had seen. And in my Astronomy 101 class,

the labs we took were located in the basement, on computers from the 1980's, old Apple IIe clones, and this was 1996.  It was as if someone had taken the whole science building and stopped time around it, making it obsolete and rickety. Even the newest of technologies were out of date.  I witnessed my first laserdisc player there. And only. I've never seen one in use. 

I say all this because in the last magazine published from GC&SU, it was all about the revamped Science building, about the futuristic architecture, the white walls and plenitude of glass. About the new equipment and the benefits that new science research would do for the college.  That, along with Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind, made me think about the old rickety building and the uses for Science in a university  mainly driven toward the Liberal Arts, as well as the sudden change of ideas that the college seemed to have during the beginning of this new economy.

One of the main highlights of Bloom's writings was the perception of the student riots at the university level during the 1960's.  While some, such as at Kent State, became deadly, there were others, such as the student strikes at Cornell, that had a drastic effect on the university system, especially those in the northern United States.  What struck me as fascinating was his view of the professors in the Humanities areas versus those of the Natural Sciences.  The ideas of Cultural Relativism (which I talked about earlier) were very much understood by the professors of the Liberal Arts (while perhaps not always agreed with). But the Science departments remained out of the conflicts between teachers, students, and the administration, because there is no relativism in science. It is either one way or the other. And no one can argue with this, as the scientific method had be held as divine for many years.  So the chasm between the study of man and the study of nature widened.It's my belief that this is exactly what happened at Georgia College & State University during the period between the 1960's and the present day. But to take a look at this more closely, we have to see why the leftover supplies were relegated to the science building while the English department received a brand new, state of the art (at the time) building. To answer this question, we have to, as Bloom did, look at the function of the University to the State and to the people. 

The university system does two things, train citizens for future jobs, to be competitive in the job market, and to bring forth the best people to drive the economy of this nation.  Secondly, they are used to further the education of people who wish to know more than just the basic knowledge.  The university serves as the bank for knowledge for those who have been outside of Plato's cave and wish to pursue self-enlightenment through the wisdom of ancestors. And between the two, therein lies the chasm of knowledge versus a skill set. Both are valuable, both are vital, but unfortunately, it's hard to get both in 4 years of college, combined with all the social things that usually occurs with going to an institution of higher learning.

And so it is, much like every other paradigm, that the pendulum swings back and forth depending on the circumstances.  With the launch of Sputnik by the Russians and the Cold War escalating after World War II, skill sets in science and engineering were needed for the competitive drive to send man to the moon. I think that it was at this point where the university system became a training ground for workers in the "field." People wanted to get degrees that would earn them money, quickly, efficiently, without the need for pausing to contemplate the philosophical aspects of mankind, or the inner thoughts of the mind, the subconscious...etc...  And this rush to fill America with highly qualified workers resulted in economic growth in the 1980's and 1990's, so much so that the need for skilled workers declined, even as money and income increased.  So, there were many wealthy families with children who could go to college, but had no need to get their hands dirty. Aside from the exploding computer industry, the fields of nursing and science (I'm sticking with these two because of the applicable examples they have at Georgia College), among others, declined in people, in funding, and in prestige.  When I arrived at Georgia College, the Nursing program was in a small building on the corner of the campus, almost invisible from the street.  And the science building was as I have described it.  The attention had shifted from science to the liberal arts, the Humanities, as they call them, so that students could learn, spend four years of their lives contemplating the vast meaning of everything, and earn a degree in something that basically does nothing in the work field.  I am not saying that the degree I received, a BA in English, isn't valuable, or that I wouldn't have done the exact same thing if I had to do it all over again, but the skill sets that I learned are significantly less, and will earn less money, than those degrees in computers, or medicine, or science. 

I have long argued that students in High School and in college need to learn both a skill set to provide them the necessary income for the rest of their lives, as well as learning art, philosophy, music, literature.  There needs to be a balance.  A worker that can work with his hands as well as his mind is much more capable of adapting to any situation.  Unfortunately, that is not the case in today's world (for various reasons that are political as well as sociological, which would take a whole other blog to do), and so people have their diplomas, their degrees from college, and they are working either at a part time job not doing anything with their degree, or they are simply unemployed, while those that have a skill set, like fixing cars or assembling computers, are providing a living for themselves and happily watching reality tv at night (that statement is generalized, and an explanation would again take a whole other blog). 

In my dreams, I have seen a university system, a community coming together to learn, to train their skill sets and become experts in many fields, as well as discussing the various aspects of the humanities.  I think one needs to come with the other, with the time saved from the skill sets invested in the humanities.  Let us build a society that relies on science, technology, medicine, business, to make time for us all to enjoy the ideas brought on by the liberal arts. For every invention that saves an hour out of every person's life, that hour can be invested back into pushing humanity forward, both in the technological realm, but also in the realms of music, art, philosophy, and the inner workings of the human mind.  Think of what we could achieve if the ideas that are implemented from the science building in Milledgeville (and elsewhere) could save us enough time that we could go to functions during the week and further our education in areas that we enjoy.  There would be nothing that we couldn't do.  I know that when I return to Milledgeville next (whenever that may be), I will see a science building not in perpetual twilight, but in a sunrise that will fill the skies of that town.  Let the graduates offer the skills that bring us all a little more sunlight into our lives.  We all need it right now.

This Used to be My Playground

If you drive up to Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City, and turn into one of the lakeside parks, you will see, at least I think, a playground of immense size and stature, towering over the lake. I am sure that the rocketship that was built at the park was not as big as the one in my imagination, looking back at those days, when my grandmother would take my brother and I the many blocks to this amazing structure. It was the fusion of man's understanding of the child's imagination. I have seen very little, before or since, that blended together steel and matter with the underlying dreams in a child's mind. To me, it was an arduous rampway to the top of the rocket. In my mind, the ramp was closed in, usually filled with children, and actually a bit scary. In the photos I've seen, it was an open walkway, much like the breezeways above interstates. It's amazing how memories change, mold themselves into something larger and more ominous than what they truly were. And how sad it made me, to look down from the satellites of Google's all seeing eye and zoom into the playground I once played in, and see the rocketship gone.

Same state, but drive, then, to the school I went to as a child, Mustang Valley Elementary, and there you will find monkey bars of various shapes, including a rocket-shaped one. So many battles were fought on that rocket ship, of Thundercats and Transformers, with my friends, Timothy and Drew and all the others, amazing times. And come to think of it, I probably got more exercise in those days than anything else. I wasn't all that overweight then, although you would never have known that by the Presidential Physical fitness tests scores I had. What fun is there in running around a gym field, with asthma threatening to creep in and the dandelions and the wasps and whatnot always lurking about? It's no fun. But being Lion-O...now that is something different. It was our own little world then, and I loved it.

[Addendum... looking for pictures of that place, I find that Mustang Valley renovated (read, took all the fun out of) the playground, taking the slides, the swings, the huge teeter totters, the beloved rocket ship, everything away, and replaced it with safer, more boring play toys. Curse them for taking away such treasures. Now children will not be able to use their imaginations and play on the dangerous wonders that truly made us children. And looking at Google, all the trees around the school have been cut down to make room for neighborhoods and houses. At least we still have our memories.][If we have to be safe all the time, we will never face danger. Climbing to the top of the Monkey Bars and standing upon the zenith of the rocket ship... it is like conquering a mountain. And if we fall... our skinned knees will have been well worth it.]

One more playground story, before I get to where I really want to take this entry. There still is a quaint little playground located just to the west of the dorms of Georgia College in Milledgeville. Nothing special about them, except for the memories I had of the swing sets there, where in my Freshman year the Ramsey twins (whom I have not heard from since then) and some of our other friends, would go and swing under the shade of the giant pine trees. It really was refreshing, the cool winds going down into the river valley, even in summer. So it was a great shock to me that one year, after returning back to campus, I wandered over to the park to see that every pine tree had been cut down, leaving a brown, ugly surface around all the playground equipment. During the hot days, the sun would beat down upon the metal fixtures and make them too hot to touch, especially for the little children that played on them. I could easily see them getting 1st degree burns from the heated metal. What good is a playground without the trees around it? The shade is metaphor as well as real. The real world cannot get to you for that little while you are on the swing sets. To see those trees cut down and the park destroyed, in spirit, was depressing.

***

Now, I venture, these playgrounds lay barren and empty for most of the time. They become hangouts for gangs and drug dealers (that was a problem, apparently, for the Stars and Stripes Park). The innocence leaves and is left only by the leftovers, by the people longing to get back to that time, but never making it through chemicals and violence. No, the playgrounds are empty. Schools have had to cut back the recess time to provide more education for failing test scores (and not for the children that take them), and city budget cuts have made replacing old equipment impossible, so the grass grows up between the iron monkey bars and cracks form on the pavement. It reminds me of Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian," which, if you haven't read it, go find a copy on the Internet, it should be there. I'll wait, it's only a 1.5 pages long.

http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by-bradbury-1.pdf

For in that story, the citizens of that fictional country lived within their houses, fixated on the moving lights of the television screens, and the lone walker outside is picked up by a robot police officer and taken to the asylum as if he was a crazy person.

Our playgrounds today are no longer the steel beams of playground rocketships or, in another since, of the rocketships that are made of the words in books. Rather, they are the images of those forms in computer games, on television. The playgrounds we visit to escape reality, to stretch our imaginations across vast spaces, those places exist only within our minds. They exist as bytes and pixels on a computer screen. Whereas we might have fought against real imaginary dragons on the school playground, now people slaughter virtual dragons in the caves of Warcraft or other games. We chase girls (or gossip about guys) not on the pavement of a schoolground playplace, but rather on the public grounds of Facebook. It's all the same in reality. Why shouldn't we all just spend our recesses texting each other and saying nothing? Not long are the days when the playful screams of children will fall silent on school playgrounds as they talk more through the keyboards on their cell phones than with their mouths. In future times, when I am old and gray, and children who may be quite used to space travel, will ask me if I've ever been in space, I will say, "Yes, although my feet have never left the ground."

[Okay... now I'm just ticked... all the playgrounds I played in as a child are gone, replaced with safer, more boring pieces of plastic. Damn the lawyers and their litigation. I want danger! I want to climb to the top of the monkey bars and look out over the cement playground and watch people skin their knees! I'm gonna scan pictures from my yearbook of the playground, and also provide links of sites I find that deal with preserving playgrounds and monkey bars and all the things we loved as kids. ]

The Senses of Learning

Imagine going to a college reunion, as I would have done this year, had they had such a thing at GC&SU (Milledgeville), and seeing all the people from your class, now 10 years older, with kids, failed dreams, or not, money, or not, and mostly with 30 pounds more or a half a head less. And there, betwixt conversation and speeches, wondering where the time went and how much had changed, there is the almost necessary singing of the Alma Mater, with the words printed on some programming sheet. And as it is sung, out of tune, with soggy nostalgia, would you wonder, for what are we missing? What makes the college years so utterly miserable, and yet so strongly yearned for? The days that I had my own apartment, going for my Masters degree, were the happiest days of my life, and yet, I was highly depressed. I went to Applebees every day to eat away my sorrow, and to run up my charge card.

It's amazing, the small, sensual details that reminds me of college. The things that make me yearn for the days when I was wondering about the campus from class to class. I thought about those, this morning, and thought I'd share the memories I had.

***
There's a certain way the college smells, in the early dawn, when Milledgeville is just waking up (well, save the students, cause they sleep till noon). But I was a morning person, and always woke up at 6 to get to the early classes, eat breakfast, go over to the computer lab (when I didn't have a computer)...etc... Squirrels there didn't seem to mind the students at all, and only ran away if you chased after them. But there were times that you sincerely wished for a good soaking rain, to wipe away the scent of living. Much as I remember playing outside after a thunderstorm in Oklahoma. It's remarkable how smells can link themselves over years of time, instantly triggering emotions of memories. For instance, I always loved walking by the Health building over near Music on my way to Clarinet Practice. They had an indoor pool, and the windows at the top of the building were open. On cold, winter evenings, the chlorinated warmth of the pool would filter out to the walkways, bringing memories of the YMCA in Bethany, with warmth that blankets your body and brings a glow to your skin, much as a cup of hot chocolate would. There is nothing so sensual as that smell.

***
Anyone who has been to college would immediately complain about the cafeteria food. Certainly, on the weekends, the food was barely edible. But the old Southern ladies that worked the back kitchen could fix the most wonderful Chicken Parmeshan with Noodles, and the Wok fixture made the best Caesar Salads I have ever tasted. I have spent years trying to imitate those salads. Down the street from SAGA (called that because of the company that owned the kitchen some 30 years ago, and the name just stuck even after the company moved out.), was a great restaurant called Brewers. It was a coffee shop that had soups, salads, sandwiches, and some sinfully wonderful cheesecakes. But the true divine food was served on Monday nights, when the soup of the day was Tomato Bisque. I have never tasted a liquid so golden or smooth, with flavors so wonderful. I have never equaled it, although I have tried many times. The restaurant is now out of business, and the secret of the soup gone forever.

***
Milledgeville is filled with old buildings, with Corinthian pillars of Neo-Greek architecture. Being in the RHA club (Residential Housing Association), I got to go inside the old Psychology building, the one that hadn't been used in years, where parts of the roof was gone, and the old, crickety stairs led up and up to places of dead knowledge. With rooms of desks and outdated psychological tools and tests, old 5" floppy disks, folders with who knows what inside. What grand design were these old towers of wisdom, now left to disintegrate. It always left me with such reverence and nostalgia for the past, even as the new computer labs left me with hope for the future, that knowledge could still exist in a world of reality TV shows and endless nights of inebriation.

***
But the highlight of being at college is definitely that feeling right after I walked out of the classrooms in the Arts & Sciences building feeling as if I had slewn (slayed, slewed??) killed a dragon. When the tests given were slaughtered and sliced and diced and an "A" was a certainty. Because the knowledge was there, the learning, was in my head and I had met my professors expectations. There is no greater feeling than this. And it's the feeling that I most long for now. I have talked about before, on another blog ( http://denzilpugh.blogspot.com/2008/01/faust-picard-and-pursuit-of-knowledge.html) how much I yearn for the continuing education that we seem never to get anymore. After work, it's the mindless electronic stimulation, eating of food, and then going to bed. We never learn anything anymore. I bring this up because I had a dream last night about being at something like a college, where music, sports, intellectual conversations, etc... was happening, and I want to look at the dream further and see how it could be implemented in real life. But that will take more than just being buried at the bottom of this blog. So I will end this here and start a new one, after I have set my brain on mix and cogitate.

Home is Where the Heart is

[This was in my birthday card to Holly (Cambeie). I thought it was related to my ideas of home I've been writing about.]

Yeah, I picked this card cause it reminded me of M.ville, and that of home. There are so few places in this world where I could actually call it home, but Milledgeville would be one of them. Specifically, my one-bedroom apartment I had for about 6 months. I remember taking Lee and Amber to see the fireworks from your apartments when I was there. Amber cried when the finale came, cause it was loud, and she was scared and stuff, but she thought it was so cool about 5 minutes later. But now they've mostly grown up. Lee's decided that he wants to go Emo, and he's got the depressing childhood history to back that up, but that's okay. He's still the kid I've seen grow up all these years. I just wish that they still had their home on Jefferson St., but that's all gone by the wayside the past few months, and hopefully now they have a trailer down betwixt there and Gordon.

But it feels like home whenever I go down there. It's a peaceful, warm, loving feeling I get, that I don't get anywhere else. And once you've experienced that feeling, I don't think it matters what else comes along. You're home, and loved, and that's the best thing. And it's so cool to watch Lee and Stephen grow up, and know that somehow you've been a part of that. I've said many times in my blog that I'm content with where I've been. Most people have this urge to raise a family, plop out some kids and put them through school. And that's okay, cause it's what they're supposed to do, it's in their genes, but there's enough families around that need the love anyway from being run out on by fathers or whatever. I'm glad I've been a part of two families that were loving and warm. There is too much coldness in this world. I've seen it in my Milledgeville family's relatives, and seen the wind blow around their houses, and even just Lee himself, but they've always been able to battle it back with the warmth they have within them. It's a strength that is unlike anything I've ever seen. And you can cue in tons of anime references, or Harry Potter, or whatever, but it's amazing what things happen if you love and are loved back. Christians would call it the work of God (who is love), but whatever it is, it sure is wonderful. How many people look in all the wrong places for love, and find nothing but the cold wind and a craving hunger? When all the time it's right there, in the people around you. And it transcends distance, and silence, age, looks, shines through the ugly as well as the beautiful.

As Mary Travers said, Home is where the Heart is. Love is home. And if you feel at home, and you're loved, then that's all that matters.