Home

The air is cooler and the wind blows in a bitter fashion. I am forced back into my habit of wearing long johns under my jeans and wrapping a scarf around my neck, tucking it under my coat before I walk through hell to get to my car under the yellow glow of street lights.

There are no more big brick cookie cutter homes or loud obnoxious streams of traffic, only the Mommy deer and her baby deers get in the way of the path home.

I am forced to use a microwave when I decide to cook. Whatever I cook on my own is in a styrofoam container with a paper covering for a lid that is glued in place. The scent of brewing coffee is intense from the pot because the place in which I now dwell is approximately 2500 square feet smaller than where I lived for the past four weeks.

It smells of sulfur in the bathroom and of mold in my bedroom. Everything is dusty from lack of human presence and the calendar on the wall is buzzing with sharpied-in assignments.

I am back on the mountain.