There is a small and simple house for me. It is waiting for me as I have been waiting for it. Somewhere, there is a gentle place ready to welcome me and my daughters and my pets and pets who don’t have people to love them. I’ve seen it in my heart many times. Only now do I feel close to walking through its warm, bright doors. Where are you, little house? Call to me so loudly I cannot miss finding your face.

Around my little house there will be wild roses, fragrant and sharp-stemmed. There will be great masses of blue hydrangeas sharing space with purple morning-glories, orange marigolds, hot pink zinnias. Most importantly, my little house will have in its yard mimosa trees and gardenia plants EVERYWHERE.

Inside my little house there will be open space, places to breathe, and enough room for every glass, each and every mug, my few plates and bowls, my odd arrangement of utensils in all different sizes, and safe places for my collections of glass pitchers, squat owls and fat, wild pigs. Mostly there will be built-in bookshelves and free-standing bookshelves everywhere for my dear friends, my books.

This house will be a haven and a refuge for my dogs and my cats, and for the dogs and cats who haven’t had a home til they find their way to mine. This house will become a home and a safe place for my daughters to do as they wish…to live in with me, to crash on visits, to drop in when they want a break from their own happy lives.

I will grow lean and accomplished in this house. I will write my books, make love with the words that lean against my heart, the sentences and phrases that wrap themselves bravely around my heart, filling me with a joy that I cannot express in spite of my intimacy with them. My skin will be dark from days in the sun splashed yard of my little home. My eyes will be bright. I will live long and happy in this sweet place that has held its heart and soul in place for me, waiting.

This is my destiny, to sink in, settle strong and wise and happy and to feel God’s peace welling up within me til it spills out all around me and everyone who comes close.