You have to have a big heart if home is where the heart is.

You know you have the perfect person riding shot gun across the United States when you come over a crest in east Colorado, see the snow capped Rockies off in the distance and he says, "Do we have any Aaron Copland”? And on your ipod, you have ... Arron Copland. If you get a chance, take a listen, close your eyes and you can just about feel the dry hot air on your skin and smell the tumbleweed.

We left out of Kearney Nebraska a few hours following sun up yesterday. After being on route 80 for a hundred and fifty miles we topped off the tank in Ogallala and then ducked south along Route 61. I just wanted to see a few tiny Nebraska towns and we did. They sure are tiny and look as though they haven't changed much since 1950. While Will was working on finishing his book, I was thinking about how weird life is.

You can be born, live a life and be buried all in one little spot of the world and probably be just fine with it. Then there are people like NickRa, my 27-year-old son, who has lived in Pennsylvania, Italy and California. He rode his bike from Rome to Amsterdam, and took the long way, as well as driven across the United States. After Denver, Will and I are picking up NickRa and delivering him to his sweetheart in Calgary. I don’t know where I am going with this, just that it sure is interesting to me how for every human being there is, there is a different dream as to what makes a life a life. And sometimes I look back on mine and think, “Whose idea was that”, “What made me think that would work” and my favorite, “Damn, I am lucky”. Maybe it’s being 53; maybe it’s just 2000 miles in four days, maybe its passing houses that at one time protected a family, now sitting empty and forgotten.

Just about 2:00 we pulled up in front of Laura and Dave’s house in Washington Park Denver, also known as ‘My home in the Rockies’. Laura and I have been friends since 1992ish. We met during Little League, both having boys playing ball for the local teams. Laura has moved quite a few times in all these years, from Saratoga to Houston and now Denver and I’ve always been given the absolute compliment from her and Dave, “mi casa su casa”. Now I am not saying she doesn’t have this on a big poster at the front door and all her friends feel the same, but for me, it was an epiphany.

The day I walked into her home in Saratoga I was struck with the details to comfort and beauty, the new construction, the selection of bathroom reading material, the tiles Laura had just installed behind the kitchen sink. While I was running my hands along the shiny marble topped island with stainless bar sink and stunning stools all around, I felt a twinge of jealousy. I wondered why I couldn’t have this too, I felt like Laura had it all and I was stuck with a row house rental in Ambler (true), but then it happened. I heard ‘that’ voice again. This time it said, “Hey, this is your house, this is your house in Saratoga that Laura and Dave take care of for you”. My entire body reacted with joy. When I told Laura, she smiled as if she already knew that. With subsequent moves she would often fill me in on the house hunting by starting with, “Dave and I found your new house”. Cool. Truth is, Laura and Dave are just those kind of people, they have made their home in their hearts. Never empty, never alone. Which makes me the luckiest woman in the world for knowing them.