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"House on the Sneem River",
pastel, by Nita Leger Casey

     My wife and I have a small home beside a river in a small town, but I wish I could more often feel like I’m home no matter where I happen to be. Home is our white stone house in Mystic, but home should also be the sidewalk I’m walking on, or the store where I’m browsing among beets and cabbages, or the hope-filled forest in which I’m walking on an unruffled April day. Home, as we say, is where the heart is, and shouldn’t my heart be wherever I happen to be, whether at the beach beneath a few first stars or at a meeting that seems boring but that brings out brightly-shining thoughts from each of the participants, if only I could see and appreciate them? Shouldn’t I feel just as “at home” holding the door for a friend miles from our house as doing the dishes in our kitchen, and shouldn’t speaking to the clerk at a store be, in a way, as pleasant as passing thoughts back and forth at home? I live in little Mystic, but I also live in the limitless universe, so perhaps my real home is among the stars and galaxies. It could be there are countless doors in my true home, all leading to moments that could be called miracles, all opening to places as comfortable and kindly as our living room on Riverbend Drive.