HOME

     Stranded in Chicago when monster Dorian hung around, though not so bad to be stuck in a daughter's home, I chewed my nails and gave myself ulcers as I watched reports and videos, changing forecasts, and wondered - would my home be there when it was all over. Attached to that thought was the worry over friends who had remained or whose homes were there, and the whole question of a way of life. What would be?
     I now understand better the heartache my mother felt as she left the home she had lived in for almost half a century. Yes, logically, it was the right decision and the head knew that, but the heart was another story. My daughter and grandchildren deeply loved my mom, gave her all their love and attention, coddled and teased, listened to her stories of the past but yet, yet....
     Home is home and no matter the substitute, one's home is home. The loss of that, along with all the memories, mental, emotional and physical, is a heartbreaker. And yet, at some point many of us must leave. We reach a point in life where we can no longer live alone and so change must be made, but to leave a home that is no longer in existence, is, I believe one of the hardest thing to accept. Now put yourself in the shoes, those battered, worn out shoes and aching feet as people left homes behind, family behind, history behind, as they are forced out by untenable political and life situations. Or were torn away by others.
     So why these growing disasters of losses of home? Because we are going backwards in life and time. We have made hard won strides in the battle of recognition of environmental disaster, of the encroaching damaged future if we did not act, but now, we have backslid and the proof of the pudding is upon us.
     Nature has taken revenge. Remember the old commercial wherein a purported Mother Nature warned us that it was not nice "to fool with Mother Nature" and the screen erupted with a storm and noise. Uh huh. Point made for real.
     Home also has another concept. G-d willing and man cooperating we will remain in our chosen home till the end, but there is another home that seems to have gone AWOL. That is my home, your home, our home, in the United States of America as it should be, striving always to better itself, to improve, to uphold the higher nature of mankind and acknowledge the errors we made along the way. But today, today we have decided that those mistakes were and are, once again, okay. We have allowed hatred to rear its  ugly face. We hve allowed murder to proliferate. We have shrugged shoulders and yawned as mass murders grow ever more common and all we get from the Demented One is "thoughts and prayers". From him!!!  Spare us, please.
     "Home is where the heart is" is the old adage. But where is the heart today? Oh, there will always be groups of caring people, fighting against the tide, sending care and love to those in need and many will rush to the Bahamas, poor destroyed place, but the trend is the other way. The nasty and the hateful are emboldened and home, where my heart is supposed to be, seems to be seeking for its old and familiar home,the true America, imperfect, but always trying, knowing enough to reject the wrong. And my friends and readers in all the other countries round the world, think of the state of home in your countries. Not so good, is it?
     We need to take a long and hard look at our lives, at what we have chosen as our home, allowed with renovaons to it that are wrong, and check within our hearts if we are actually open to the concept of home and the need for home all over the world. 
     "ET phone home" was a slogan for decades and has returned, as the longing within it was clear and heartbreaking. Everyone wants to phone home, to live at home, in a chosen and loving home. Where are we today in that arena? Where are we in allowing others to have homes, to fixing homes? Where are we in aiding them to find homes and make no mistake about it, there are so many here who have lost their homes, physical and emotional, right here in America. 
     We must do something about that and soon. No, not soon, ASAP. Even that is not enough. So even as Trump steals $3.6 billion funding from the military to build his damned wall, to ruin home for so many, we need to stress the importance of home, and reject those who would allow it, even welcome it.
     And just as a closing thought for the Villagers, the Village is our home, all year or part of it, but it is home. We must make sure that it is in good and honest and capable hands, with eyes and minds that look towards the present and the future and seek the best methods and planning to insure the sanctity and permanence of this, our home. Keep that thought in mind as we move towards our own elections in March.