Already Home

 I am already home.

If to be home already brings
the possibility of having never left,

It might follow then that strong arms have always held me safely:  

Strong arms of my own existential beingness.

These thoughts rolled through my mind as a I fitfully slept the other night.  There is fear.  There is storm.  There is peace and shelter in the inner sanctum--even for a free-thinker/atheist such as myself.

The shelter within: fortress, bulwark, hearth, walls, gates, doors, windows. A castle secure from the onslaught of exterior circumstances.  I might say I am a castle impregnably stalwart.  Perhaps death is one enemy that I won't vanquish--thankfully.  And then there is this feeling: castle feels cold.  

Home feels warm.  Warmth of hearth, joy of good family meals, chatter, companionship, all that it means to be at home, and be home.  It seems to me like it should be shoes kicked off, just pure relaxation.

Storms do rage, for a time.  They are without.  Maybe there is a castle part we can run to for the added protection, and yet serfdom was no freedom.  My castle gods are broken down and the ruins seem like they should remain just that.  A waste of resources that need not be rebuilt.  Some of the old structure has been repurposed and recycled.  Castles with motes and spires might seem like fantasies of yesteryears.  I'm not even sure I need the outline of the foundation or a stone of memory immortalized.  A plaque maybe.  Then I think of the waste of giving too much notice:  so many more important things to notice in this short life.

This home that I've built and become is a structure that cannot dissolve under the breath of breeze or force of gale, well maybe, but then the force of gale is short-lived more often than not.  Strong arms have always held me.  My own strong arms.  I've cuddled in the arms of my partners, and feel the most secure in the arms of my male partner.  Given the rest of the story, those famine arms I miss, and would never discount.  The wee arms about my own neck as I have held my own son.  

And I think of the arms of my father and mother that held me and loved me to their best ability.  Yes there have been some blows along the way, thankfully never physical ones except for those of my parents (sparing the rod is actually a very human and humane idea by the way), but that was a long time ago, a different age, and gratefully the emotional wounds are dimming.

Family, friends, companions have helped me get to a place where mere survival is a thing of the past, and I don't need the walls of my religion or the bulwarks of dogma to keep out that which might overwhelm me.  I perhaps never needed these things to begin with.  How about you?

Maybe there is something to this idea: Living in the Moment by Jason Mraz