Home is Where...

Home is where the hearth is.

I know that's not the traditional phrasing, but it came to mind tonight as I drove through a neighboring town that was dealing with a power outage.  Nearly every window in town was dark with the exception of one of two homes showing signs of flickering firelight. With the wind howling and the temperature falling I found myself imaging what such a night would have been like back in the 1700's.

I pictured a secluded homestead on a moonless December night. Wind rushed down a winding lane, picking up a scrap of discarded parchment and sent it pinwheeling through the air. A certain carpenter hunched further down into his jacket and, though tired from a long day of work, struggled to pick up his pace.

Adding insult to injury, a snow squall quickly turned the hard-packed lane white. The carpenter wound his scarf an extra turn around his neck.

Fingers tingling, eyes watering, and nose running, the carpenter rounded the last bend in the lane to see his thatched roof cottage. Smoke rose from the chimney and warm yellow light flickered in the windows.

True, his heart lived in that cottage; but at that particular moment the hearth was what called out to him.