home...

only two places in the world actually feel like home to me. one is where i am right now... sitting in my parents' house in long beach. sunshine in the windows, creaky hardwood floors, palm tree in the front yard, fresh flowers on any horizontal surface with free space. the other is 71 brown ledge road, colchester, vermont. 05446. (more specifically, in the pointhouse). but, i realize, i haven't told you much about my summer home... sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now. cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town. it's not a summer home like most people have. it was my summer camp for 13 summers. my other home. but, i'll have to owe you many more posts to come about that place.

today. it's all about the lbc. with big red and tony. so much lovin' in the lbc, ya dig?

i'm home for a few days. it always surprises me though, how at home i feel, because i haven't lived in this house for about ten years. this little spanish style duplex with the royal blue trim. my room is no longer my room. but, you know what? it still sort of is. and the seasons they go round and round. there's a tiny corner piece from the jonathan taylor thomas poster that i hung over my bed on the ceiling. right up there with hundreds of those tiny glow in the dark star stickers. i know how most of the stains on the carpet got there. i can see, so clearly, where the big taxidermied moose head hung for most of childhood. and the painted ponies go up and down. remnants of my artwork are still on the walls. but mostly, it's my mom's room now. her other room, that is. where she set up her office, her vanity, a television (so she can watch ncis while my dad watches golf in their actual room). i don't mind sharing though.

today something new and different happened in my room. my dad came in to talk to me. but, not in our usual way...

words like when you're older must appease him. and promises of someday make his dreams.

bean, i was a little depressed the other day. you know, because things are going to be changing soon. (he pulled out a scrap of paper where he had written down some notes... about why he was feeling depressed. do you love it?). i know i can take care of myself, and i know i can take care of your mother. but, i don't think i can take care of you. and not in a financial way. but, i'm not really the broad shoulders anymore. i can't give you everything you need... we can't return, we can only look. behind from where we came.


what? oh my dad. there's more...

your mom said not to worry. that i had always given you all of the tools. the tools to be able to do anything you want. 


i hope i did. 

if you know my dad, you know that this is a pretty big-ass deal. though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true. but there'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty. we've worked on our relationship for a long time... and we're definitely still navigating it. but, shit. this just about shattered my heart into a million trillion pieces... in the best way, you know?

before the last revolving year is through.

i love you.

lyrics from joni mitchell's, the circle game. the mush pot of images... from my iphone, here, and our family collection... that last one is me and tony, circa 1985.