Heather Anne

People say home is where the heart is. An unfortunate piece of faulty logic, that. My heart is often at Mayfield Dairy Farms, where you can get two scoops of freshly-churned chocolate ice cream for a dollar. But when I showed up at Mayfield Dairy, out on US-124, with a pillow and a sleeping bag, they shooed me away. Apparently my heart and home don’t necessarily live at the same address.

I’ve lived in a lot of houses, a few apartments, a dorm room. I spent my physical growing up years over on Oak Leaf Drive, right past that bridge and the People’s Baptist Church. I spent my emotional growing up years at White Oak Drive, right before you get to Old Federal Park, behind the Pop Stop. My grandparents live on White Oak; it’s the brick house with the pool, the one with all those muscadine and scuppernong vines down at the bottom of the hill.

I lived there a couple of times when I was small, and for about seven years when I was grown. Physically, I mean.

Manmaw bought me a sled for my 21st birthday, and we called it The Steel Saucer. It was one of those hopeful presents because in Georgia it hardly ever snows. Well one winter it did snow, and good. I asked Manmaw to sled with me. She said yes, of course, even though she’d broken her arm in the snow when I was nine. We bundled up and got on The Steel Saucer and sped down the hill in the backyard. Manmaw squealed, I and closed my eyes because I thought for sure we were going to crash right into those muscadine vines. We hit a bank; we toppled over; we lay in the snow, belly-laughing. My Grandpa Tom joined in. His shoulders shook, and he slapped his knee, from a safe distance on top of the hill.

I couldn’t always be at White Oak, so I spent a lot of time over on Briarwood at Amy’s parent’s house. Amy’s dad, Mr. Douglas, was a sight, I tell you. He let Amy try just about anything she wanted, including riding the tractor, operating the table saw, building a fire pit. By extension he let me try those things, too. I told him I wasn’t really good with coordination so maybe I’d just pass on the tractor. But Mr. Douglas, he saw the want in my refusal. He let me warm-up with the riding lawn mower. Amy’s mom, Betty Jo, was sensible and also a hoot. When I was sick, she’d tell me to rest, rest, honey. And she’d give me prescription medicines. Then sometimes, way after her bedtime, she’d whip up some homemade strawberry shortcake and say we ought to go out and see a midnight movie. She never cared if I went in my pajamas.

Last week I got sick and said I sure wouldn’t mind some of Manmaw’s homemade vegetable soup. She called and said I could come get it on the way home from work. I left early and drove over to White Oak. I walked in the door, got a good hug, and then opened up the refrigerator. Manmaw said, “There’s watermelon on the second shelf.” Manmaw made cornbread, too, and sent me home with a pint of soup in a Ball Jar.

Tonight I went over to Briarwood because Betty got some fresh okra this afternoon from J. More Farms, up there off US-365. I went in to the house and opened the refrigerator and Betty said, “There should be a cold Coke in there.” She made green beans and cornbread, fried okra and roasted potatoes. Mr. Douglas grilled out pork chops and chicken. I had seconds of nearly everything and accidentally said “smartass.” Amy made me apologize. I said my love language was hugs, so Mr. Douglas made a show of it when I left. Betty sent me out the door with a container of homemade ice cream.

Sometimes I go to sleep and my heart’s back in Jamaica, Saint Ann’s Bay parish, about 9 kilometers west of Ocho Rios. Or sometimes my heart’s back in Wales, in that farmhouse about a two-hour drive south of The Lake District. Or sometimes it’s in a place I’ve never been, with a people I’ve yet to know. But that’s not home, is it?

No, home isn’t where the heart is. Home is where you can go and open up the refrigerator and have anything you like. Home is up the hill at White Oak. Or just past the old bike shop, down the hill at Briarwood.