HOME PROVIDES SHELTER OF HAPPINESS AND LOVE

December twilights descend tenderly with shadows gathering companionly in the low places while an afterglow still tints the western sky. It's homecoming time. If you've been out relating to the world's many facets of living discussing, agreeing, objecting, purposing, explaining, helping, hindering, forgiving, and generally responding to a thousand stimuli, it is so good to feel the old familiar doorknob in your hand. Give it a twist and once again you're home, a place that has never been definitely described for it means so many different things to different people.

Home is where the heart is. Home is the place you hang your hat. Home is where if you go there they have to take you in. So goes the many attempts at describing a home. One of my dictionaries gives eleven definitions. The fourth one suits me, "an environment or haven of shelter, of happiness and love."

We once had a horse, Russell, who was willing to pull the buggy alone for long distances away from home, or the big farm wagon with a teammate, but the minute, on the return journey, when he entered a certain area where he sensed familiarity, he began to trot faster and faster, to throw his head back and shake his mane, his nostrils flaring as if to inhale every wisp of well remembered odor. By the time we got to the last long hill leading up to his home, the barn, there was no checking his haste no matter how much we pulled back on the reins, or how much his more lackadaisical teammate objected. We always left the barnyard gate open when out with Russell for fear he'd jump the fence gate, buggy or wagon and all, in his eagerness to get back to his "house of shelter and happiness."

Unhitched he would quiver with seeming delight beneath the curry comb and turn to look at us often with his great, liquid, brown eyes as we rubbed him down. Entering his stall where corn and hay awaited, he would make soft velvety whinnies that spoke of utter comfort and peace. There would be answering whinnies down the row of stalls. He had been out in the sharp-edged world and had returned home home, to smell the combined odors of cracked corn, hay, leather harness, cow stalls on the other side of the partition and the pungent manure pile itself, to hear the soft moos and neighs and the clucking of a few laggard hens as they hurried for the twilight hen house.

I think of Russell often these busy shopping days as I pull away from the complexities of the highway, round a curve, pretty fast, go past familiar houses, yards, tree and shrubs even faster, a la Russell, to squeak my brakes and turn into my own driveway. At this time of year there's usually woodsmoke in the air from surrounding homes with fireplaces. I inhale deeply. Whatever dog or cat may be there to greet me as I go up the walk, I stop to greet it too a rub here, a pat there. If Dustin is shooting goals in his yard and sees me, he shouts a greeting. Street lights are coming on as if to lengthen the season's shorter days. I look around the circle drive to see who is home, according to their window lights.

Inside, some sort of tenseness drops away from me as if I'm shedding an old, heavy, ill-fitting coat. My real coat comes off and my real shoes. My out-in-the-sharp-edged-world clothing is replaced by my in-home, fleecy lined garments. My feet wriggle comfortably in some fuzzy lined, roomy slippers and my body quivers deliciously with comfort as did Russell's hairy hide. I might even whinny or make some suitable purring sounds with home-sweet-home contentment.

Once, in the midst of a holiday family meal, when there was a comfortable gap in the conversation, my older sister, with no lead-into conversation, looked around and said, "I wish everyone had a home." We continued eating in silence for a while, each one, no doubt, thinking of those who might not be so lucky. Mentally I reviewed the definitions of home. Does environment or haven of shelter cover a familiar, out-of-the-wind doorway, or above-a-warm-sidewalk-grate fit in? Some say, yes. It's familiar. It's home base, a hub where one can return to and look out on the spokes of his world. No taxes. No upkeep. No responsibilities. Freedom.

Still, never mind the oranges and cookies, mingled odors of cinnamon and nutmeg, candles burning and Santa coming, my wish for everyone this year is a home, if only a rude stable or glorified box, warm or cool depending on where you live, an appreciation of a home, and an at-home feeling in the universe wherever you are at gentle twilight time.

REJOICE!