Five Minute Friday - Home

It is that time again.  Friday.  I look so forward to participating in Lisa-Jo's Five Minute Friday.  Want to participate?  It is so simple....all you have to do is: 

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back to Lisa-Jo's blog by clicking here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and please turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Home

GO:

They say “Home is where your heart is” but when I was 19 I left home and I thought I had a good reason.  She was a 5’4.5” dynamo I called Mom.  Thirty-five years later home has found me and the roles were reversed.  My mom had dementia and my dad had cancer and I would be taking care of them.  They moved their home into mine and we became a family living under one roof again. You see, once upon a time there had been a happy little family of four who lived on street called Georgia Avenue.  They had a landlady, Ethel, and they  lived in her basement apartment and that was home.  The love that grew in that tiny basement apartment was amazing.  Life on Georgia Ave was wonderful.  While we lived on Georgia Ave I was the only child for three years among an entire block of adults…retired adults at that.  They treated me as if I were 3 going on 30. I could play Bridge at 4 and Pinochle by the age of 5.  I was a whiz at Gin at age 3.   At the age of three I was also one of the youngest children to ever hold a library card at the Palm Beach County Public Library.  By nine I had read every book in the juvenile section of the library.  I loved reading!  Home was where I read.  Both of my parents read voraciously and so did I.       Right before my fifth birthday we moved across town to Vedado Park and to a street called El Prado.  I loved the name of the street.  It was Spanish for “The Meadow” and had a beautiful ring to it.   This was a cute little house in a cute little neighborhood filled with all kinds of children. There were boys and girls older and younger than we were.  There were mean kids and nice kids.  It was heaven on earth for a child.   I met two of my best friends that first week.  Susan lived just around the corner and Carol lived two doors down.  Our new home had a yard full of trees. The yard of my new home was a child’s buffet…a  true smorgasbord.  There were Japanese Figs, avocados, grapefruits and oranges.  If those  were not enough then  the next door neighbor’s house held a Garden of Eden full of mangos, lemons, limes, and coconuts and it was free for the asking.  There was this one tree in the middle of the Garden that we were commanded not to eat from.  It was the King of Mango trees.  The minute restrictions were put on this tree was the minute it became open game…and one afternoon after our neighbor went to work we all slipped into his back yard and  ate from the tree.  We all learned immediately why this tree was off limits.  This giant of Mangos was a turpentine mango….and that is exactly what it tasted like…the sweet peachy taste of the other mangos was erased as we filled our mouths with juicy turpentine mango….YUCK!  We thought we would die and of course could not confess to our crime for fear of further punishment.  I never ate anything from the Garden of Eden again and have never let a mango cross my lips again.  The smell and taste of turpentine is still strong in my memories.  Many years have passed….and the definition of home sometimes got lost….my parents and I parted ways and I raised my own family 700 miles away from them ….I guess I thought I could run away from home…but the words to Karla Bonoff’s song would sometimes stop me in my tracks and remind me of what Home was…..”And Home, Sings me of sweet things, My life there has it's own wings, To fly over the mountains,  Though I'm standing still.”  With my parents living with me I learned the definition of home again….and being married to Frank I know that….home is wherever Frank is….right now…it is a parsonage in Rock Mills….and you know…in the words of Bonnie Raitt, “Feels like home to me, Feels like home to me, Feels like I'm all the way, Back where I come from.”   Ok...I will fess up....I actually wrote for 7 minutes.  It just came flowing and I could not stop. 

STOP: