Home

I am home.
I flew home on Air France flight 332 yesterday. I ran into a good friend at Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris and that gave me a fun way to break up the long flight: meeting Marco to share a little bottle of wine back in the flight attendant’s station.

There was a Federal Agent beagle sniffing luggage at Logan Airport, which made me excessively happy. The beagle sniffed my bag a lot, causing the agent to interrogate me about whether or not I had any food in it. No, I told him, beaming at the dog. The agent persisted, kindly: had I recently had any food in that bag, perhaps? Oh sure, I said. I’ve been using this bag for five weeks. I’m sure I’ve had all kinds of food in it. Thank you, said the agent, leading the beagle away. “Good boy!” I called after him (the dog). “That’s a GOOD boy!” He was wearing a darling little vest!

Rali found me easily and we drove into Boston’s green springtime beauty chatting away.

The church bells of First Parish are ringing 9:00 now — ten minutes too soon. We have an eccentric bell. I like that.

Max is snoozing in the next room. I feel so good having him back home again but he is definitely depressed, pining for his friends Milliemoss and Goodwin. Poor Max. I retrieve Ermengarde tomorrow; hopefully she will put some spring in his step again. He does wag his tail when I approach but we are a small pack here and he needs adjustment time. I am so incredibly grateful for my friends Amy and Tim who are his honorary doggie parents. Maxfield loves me very much but he loves them, too, and I worry that he has a better life with them and their menagerie. All those four-legged friends and delicious horse and sheep manure in the bargain. Paradise!
Well, life’s not too rough for him here, either. Either way he’s got it made. I told him about the doggies in Greece and Romania who don’t even know where their next meal is coming from and he sighed and snuggled into me. He knows.

I dyed my hair a pomegranate red this morning. It looks dreadful but it has great symbolic value to me and I like it for that reason. No one else needs to like it.

I am home. Someone asked me on this blog recently what home means to me. Thank you for asking that. On July 5, 1984, I recorded this quote in a book of quotes I was keeping at the time. It’s from “The Wiz,” and is spoken by Glinda the Good Witch:

Home is a place we all have to find, child.
But it’s not a place where we eat or sleep…
Home is knowing.
Knowing your mind, knowing your heart, your courage.
If we know ourselves, then we’re always home. Anywhere.

More on this later. Right now I’m still on France time and need to hit le hay.

At the Musee D’Orsay.