{"id":8704,"date":"2016-07-24T18:10:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T22:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8704"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:51:18","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:51:18","slug":"home-away-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=8704","title":{"rendered":"Home away from home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rain stopped just a minute ago. A slight mist rises from the hot asphalt, an accent against the deep green of the tree leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

My shoulders drop as though I’d let a heavy backpack slip from them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything I can see is green. Trees, plants, just green. No cement. No asphalt except the two-lane road. The speed limit is 25 mph, except a couple stretches where it’s 35. But lots of people in our community only go 15 or 20 mph, no matter what road they’re on.<\/span><\/p>\n

I slow down. I just want to look. Want to feel the gradual ascent and the curve of the road as it obeys the lay of the mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of Tom’s stroke<\/a>, I haven’t been back to our house\u00a0in a month. In that time, summer has reached its fullness. The heat and rain have brought out millions of leaves, billions of tiny insects, and I don’t know how many katydids.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When darkness comes, their\u00a0chorus chanting fills the forest with call and response. The rise and fall of that rhythm makes me feel a part of a much bigger lifecycle than my mere few decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Home” is wherever I am with Tom. \u00a0But since he\u00a0is in a rehab hospital, and I can’t stay there with him, I have to again redefine home. <\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve settled in at the condo and when he is back, it will be home.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in this moment\u00a0home is a\u00a0green space, where everything is slower and more peaceful, where I can lose my identity without it being stolen<\/a> by anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2007, the year that we moved here.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rain stopped just a minute ago. A slight mist rises from the hot asphalt, an accent against the deep green of the tree leaves. My shoulders drop as though I’d let a heavy backpack slip from them. Everything I can see is green. Trees, plants, just green. No cement. No asphalt except the two-lane … read more Home away from home<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320,321],"tags":[18,565,89,184,180],"class_list":["post-8704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shelter","category-tress","tag-18","tag-green","tag-home","tag-insects","tag-trees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8704"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8767,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8704\/revisions\/8767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}