snapshots

Evening in the trailer park. I am chasing a football up and down our dusty street, having been chosen as "monkey in the middle" by the four boys who have joined me outside our trailer. Nearby, the little girl (6 years old) from across the street watches with anticipation and cheers me on. The boys are being obnoxiously loud, and for a moment I consider asking them to tone it down. In the end, I decide it's about time that they were just having fun, not weighed down by discouraging home situations, and I let them go on being as rowdy as they please. After all, it's not even 7:00.

When the mother of one of the boys, a woman whom I worry about, asks me to help jump her car, I knock on the door of another neighbor and ask for his help. He grumbles a little, but promptly (and proudly) pulls out his jumper box and gets the rattling automobile going. He's a man's man, gruff and truck-loving and sporting a worker's tan. What most wouldn't see is that he is also a chef and a trained beautician, which means his wife gets great hair styles each morning, and we get the surplus of whatever he cooks at night. Dang good food, I tell you. While crawling under my truck and offering to fix it, he says with sarcasm, "Remember. I'm not a mechanic. I don't fix cars, I don't do hair, and I don't cook."

Later, with a couple friends joining us, the three of us roommates eat Jim's food and play a board game on the floor. The place still smells, but at least the air is cooler at night. On our fridge, a drawing by the girl next door and a picture of the rambunctious 7 year-old who comes over every afternoon, grinning as he plays a game of Jenga with Leah. This journey is by no means easy. Sometimes the smells are overwhelming, the heat feels oppressive, and my mattress seems especially hard. But it is such a gift, our little home.

More and more, that's what it is. Home.