My house is in a stately neighborhood where neighbors wave with smiles on their lips and distrust in their eyes as they drive by, zoom by, in cars so shiny you could see your face in them
My house stands tall like a giant with a certain air of dignity, like a gray haired judge or a man wrinkled and weathered by time, confident in his own wisdom. And out back is a lawn full of luscious green grass that seems to hug the gentle curves of the sloping hill my house sits on, these hills I learnt to ride a bicycle on, screaming with mixed terror and joy as I coursed down and my sister a blur of color hurtling past me
But this is not my home. My home, the place where my heart rests is thousands of miles away possibly millions but it seems like a whole universe. My home is warm. It is a place in the sun where the sweltering heat hails flocks of mosquitoes. My home is across crashing blue waves, in a house a fading white with a blue marble front porch. Once I stood on that porch with my sister. And the breeze was blowing, it was whispering so tenderly nothing like the mourning twisting shrieking gale it would soon turn into. And on the breeze wafted the scent of coming rain and we convinced ourselves we could fly, my sister and I. Home is tall palm trees stretching overhead and shrubs sticking in my side. Home is a delirious dizzy happiness and cousins and aunts and second cousins twice removed, uncles and sisters and step great grandmothers. Home is family laughing and talking and spicy food burning the roof of my mouth and home is sitting under a moon like pure virgin snow. All brown, all around and protecting each other
And
Home is the rainbow at the end of my sister's finger.
Look she says
Pointing at the sky fresh after rain
But
Home is also the loud vicious roar of guns not so far away. Bullet after bullet after bullet, a pounding song. Home is a single unexpected bullet falling falling through the school roof. The single silent moment when it embedded itself in a boy's skull. This is what people see when they turn on their TVs at night, cozy and safe on their couches miles away. They shake their heads in disgust while I hold a cloth over my nose to keep out the fine Sahara sand, the sand that as come from the North like a lost cousin, foreign and strange. And I hold a cloth over my nose to keep out air dense with invisible golden grains you can almost taste it. And I hold this cloth so that I can sleep and this is home, and home is where the heart is.
