Unchange Is Good

Home sweet home without issue, yet Home seemed ungrateful to have us back. The airport, the luggage belt, the cabbie, all conveyances seemed coolly indifferent. I can’t say for sure what I expected really, a scatter of appreciative applause at the arrival gate? All I know is everything and everyone seemed locked in the same state as when we left three weeks ago. Inanimate trees were leafless and frozen, crusted snow berms — slightly higher maybe — still car exhaust gray, outside air was odorless and stagnant, even the cloud bank roiling over the Chugach mountains appeared unchanged, and the road from the airport home was the same old hard, weather-checked ribbon of gray streaking through a world of white. And then it struck me, this is Home. Enthusiasm of welcome isn’t measured in change, but stasis — life forces in motionless balance.

Speaking of quietude, arrived home to an alarm-less lift station controller. We were beginning to think something personal had gone between us and septic lift stations everywhere, as the septic for the condo complex in Maui where we stayed was located near our unit, and one bright, sunny afternoon the alarm on its lift station controller went off, prompting another call of concern from us to the front desk, to which we received the same curt response as when we had complained about the loud generator laboring all night long: “Stan is looking into it.”

Anyhoo, it feels good to be home. Lucy was well cared for and would you look at that, a tall stack of monthly bills on the counter top awaits our attention. More evidence that nothing has changed.