Homebound

Every house along some long and leading road is a destination. We never stop there, never think of stopping there. We have places to be. Yet just off to the right and to the left, between the hay bales and barbed-wire fencing, sit a hundred places to be. They are the end of the journey, rather than the road itself, for someone.

The house off to the right, with the gravel driveway and the three oak trees in the side yard, is the home of two grandparents. Children and their own children come to visit each Thanksgiving, or Christmas, with bulky brown suitcases and home movies from a birthday months ago.

That house on the left, the one with the brick carport and the trampoline just beside an old tire swing, is where an older brother and his wife live. Every summer, about this time, a car pulls in with flashlights and fishing gear, and with memories yet to be made.

But we, we pass by these houses just like all the rest, barely noticing the bright brick bumps along the way home. We pay no attention to stories we have no need of knowing, stories that were never ours to share. The long road leads us that way, toward a destination. It seldom allows us to consider others.

Paper Promise

Made in a moment, the promise lasts long after the words describing it. It changes. It grows. And the decision rightly made is shown beneath the baring light of time.

Like any paper promise, the handling makes all the difference. It can be carelessly considered, eventually lost and left to litter the ground. So too might it be thrown away, discarded in search of another. Yet even the softest or most delicate paper promise, kept, may last forever.

Folded and tucked away like the memory of a new love, the perfect paper promise keeps close to the heart that chooses it. Though its words and sentiments last as long as their makers allow, the mere act of keeping them becomes its own new promise each day. Those vows, too, line the winding way toward heaven, well.