In the new place, the front and kitchen windows let sun stream in onto the wood floors. With the bedroom door open (as it must be, otherwise the cat can't reach the catbox), I can see the floors glowing red in the morning without moving. Occasionally, the prisms in the picture window cast rainbows across the polished oak and the white plaster walls. Against my feet, Cat Six, the thirteen pound behemoth of a rescued beast, begins to purr.
There's a certain grace in being home after almost an entire year of drifting from place to place by truck, train, and plane. There's a certain peace in making coffee in your own kitchen, kettle shrieking away on the electric stovetop, with the big red witch ball glowing in the morning sunlight and the blue glass lantern alight with the same. There's a comfort to a cat curling around ankles to trip me up as I try to feed and water him, and in dirty dishes piled in my sink, bacon frying in the cast iron, and a warm fleece blanket for my legs on the sofa.
I've come home again. Groggy and shuffling from the unneeded piles of covers on my bed (and oh, for a bed of my own, after years of borrowed mattresses and frames), shoving at the cat (who is fighting for lap real estate with the laptop), ignoring the work phone as it buzzes on the coffee table. Swearing and sweating onto the floors as I go through my morning workout. Fighting the clock for time to shower, to have breakfast, to have coffee and chat with folks before I drive to work.
I've never been more at peace.