a land called home
[Outer Banks, NC]
when i was young, i was determined one’s feelings were an organ. just like one’s appendix, the feelings might be removed if necessary. one’s shoulders became heavy or tight or slouched when one experienced a shift in emotion. similarly, if one’s shoulders were massaged this build-up of emotion seeped back into the atmosphere from which it came. based on this preponderance of evidence, it stood to reason in my young mind that one’s feelings were located in the shoulders.
reflecting on the idea of home and the different shapes which it has taken over the years has stirred my shoulders. somedays they are soft, comforted by the fire which warms my current office and the image of the boss’s cats which have adopted last night’s abandoned pizza box. somedays, they collect the excitement that is the process of building a new home, a less tangible home that presides predominantly in the tattered blue suitcase on the floor. the one i never painted because the front zipper broke. the one i use anyway. other days i don’t think to feel my shoulders; perhaps that’s when they’re at home near the salt and the sea.