Home Is Where the Heart Is?

In my case, home is where the lungs are. I'm getting ready to head to North Little Rock for five days and one of the things I will be doing is running with my mom. For many, many miles. My mom and I used to run together when I was in junior high and high school. We'd take a meandering run through Overbrook and talk nonstop the whole time, or go out to the high school track and let the stopwatch and each other push us to go faster. We share a love for the outdoors and anything athletic, so it's wonderful when we're actually in the same city to enjoy it together.

Of course, the flipside of this for me, is that home is also where the stomach is, at least where my grandmother is concerned. I will go to her house and often find homemade macaroni and cheese, rolls, chicken, green beans, monkey bread, a casserole or two, and last, but most definitely not least, an entire plate of deviled eggs set aside just for me. (Nothing can beat my grandmother's deviled eggs. And yes, I always eat every one on the whole plate.)

When I lived at home I took these and other things for granted. Sometimes the predictability of being there would drive me crazy. Now it's that very predictability that I am looking forward to: the runs, the food, watching First Wives Club with my mom, sitting in my grandmother's front yard while she tells me all about the different birds that are eating at her birdfeeders at that particular moment, listening to my brother talk about cars and not understanding a word of what he's saying, going to the Nazarene Church in Beebe and smiling through exclamations of how much I've grown (there must be an age limit on this one), grocery shopping at the Kroger and running into people I haven't seen in years, playing with my little cousins and their John Deere tractor toys...

Okay, maybe my heart is there a little bit, too.