About this time of year everything begins to change about "coming home."

The car may be in the drive, but the house is empty.  I walk in the front door and can smell it - the back yard.  The kitchen door is open, the heat from mom's tea garden (our "beer garden") pouring into the kitchen like her tea into a porcelain cup.  The afternoon sun sneaks in through the lace curtains.  This is my home in the summer.  A peak down that dark stairway shows you the back door is wide open - always is.  Mom's hands are buried deep in dirt somewhere.  Dinner won't be ready until 9pm - or much later, once the sun has gone down and she's remembered herself.  By then, the frogs have come out.  I don't always remember there being so many frogs at night, it seems to have happened over the past few years.  Two nights ago I stood at my door and just listened.  It's spring and even the ponds have remembered how to sing. Me and the stars, we listened.