Streaming Home

The wind whispered in my ear it’s time to go home now. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. The water near me was a silver blue, just a tad darker than the pale blue sky. It looked so peaceful and calm. I envied the water, how it could flow with no permanent destination. I slowly stretched my arm out, afraid that I would frighten it and it would run away. The mouth of the water devoured my hand as a whole the exact second I dipped it in. Why couldn’t I be the water? There were rocks in the pit of the stream as I felt around. They were smooth, slick, and their shapes were basically a lopsided oval. Typical. Unfortunately they were all implanted into the stiff mud which was considered to be their home. I didn't want to be a rock.

I snatched my hand back up out of the unaffected water. It still ran its course, never stopping. One day, maybe old Silver Blue would suddenly meet his end, dry out even. For now though, he still set forth on his journey to nowhere. No home, no place that he has to settle down. Maybe I want to be like old Silver Blue because I know that there is a whole horizon that awaits me at the finish line, just like he knows. He can scrape against those damn rocks anytime he would like to, but would never be subjected to stay.

I may have a home, but I belong out on the road, traveling to different destinations, but not a definite one. I belong on the dusty desert road traveling aimlessly to the unknown, just like old Silver Blue belongs in the infinite flowing river.

I break the daze and look back at the house behind me. Should I be thinking irrationally like this at all? Should I really be envying a lonely old river that has no place to go? Yes. No. Yes. Yes? No? That little house on the hill is technically my home; this town I live in is technically where I am bounded, but could these locations really be what I want to call home at all? My real home could be eleven thousand miles from where my feet are at this exact second. Homes are permanent, but I’m not. I’m a river, not a conformed rock.

I see my neighbor’s dog trot her filthy paws back into the house. I see a little three year old stumble up to her uncle, asking him to hold her close. I then take a shallow breath in and fix my eyes back onto the concrete gray house that has a nose bleed red door in the front, the one that is firmly glued onto the hill. It’s time to go back, but not for long. I trudge out of the small woods and wave goodbye to old Silver Blue and he replies with a cheerful splash. The lanky trees that reached all the way to the ocean blue ceiling of the Earth seemed to detect my departure, and began to violently sway knowing that I would never return.