I love being home and resist embarking on any journey, even if only to go to work. Though once I’ve broken free of the nest’s tractor beam, I enjoy getting away. It’s fun and challenging to see new things, eat new foods, make do with what I have on hand, problem solve getting from here to there. The pleasure of a pleasant chat with an interesting stranger can’t be overestimated. 

All that excitement provides the necessary contrast for the peak of the trip— returning home. Oh, the joy! The warm coziness! That ease is difficult to achieve on the road, though it can be done if you’re with the right person. For the nest is a state of mind generated by two things: specific physical comforts—the bed, the reading wedge and reading light, the to-be-read book stack, the pot of tea, the clean bathroom—and being with the special person you can tell anything to, be out of sorts with, and get cuddles from. In sum, the nest equals creature comforts plus the creature who’s a comfort. Relaxation without guarding. Toasty contentment. 

The world is dangerous, the weather unpredictable, and politics crazy-making. Always, when I venture out, I’m on alert, aware and wide awake, ready to run. At home, I doze off reading a book, snack at will, annoy my husband (and vice versa), all in perfect safety. I know this is special, and something to be grateful for. There are so many—too many—people who are afraid of who they live with. They have no haven, no escape from the world, nowhere to rest and recoup.  

Too many people don’t even have actual shelter. It’s unbearable to think of what living on the street must be like: the vulnerability to predators, to vermin, to cold and wet, to illness, to hunger; the untethered loneliness; the indifferent harshness. If you’re sleeping in a cardboard box under a bridge, how easy it would be to let go of life, to let it slip away, to exhale that last breath.

If home is good, it’s easy to take for granted. If not, the yearning must be like Oliver Twist pressing his face against a window looking at the scene within: seen but impossible to attain. The cruelty of the world is appalling. I snuggle closer to my sleeping husband in our comfortable bed inside our sturdy house, and listen to the heavy rain blustering outside, lashing and rattling the windows.