Hearth

How good is good?

If you faithfully fulfill the bulk of your professional, familial, and social responsibilities, for more than a fortnight at least, does that earn you the right to several hours of misbehavior?

When the big old guy in the sky with the beard and the book tallies up your score, does He cut you a break for being a reasonably good employee, parent, and friend and overlook the part where you failed to abide by all the requisite local ordinances and traffic laws?

And doesn’t being under various influence of various influences earn you a “Stay Out of Jail Free” card, too?

I took the long way around the Lake to my backyard in order to descend (literally) upon a covey of forest elves (figuratively) warming themselves in the open-air living room of an invisible house.  The quarter moon’s half-pie hung in the west and disappeared behind the trees at about the same time the aforementioned pastoral scene appeared before me.

Fortunately, I had gotten a head start on my own evening’s interior by way of a corporate watering hole painted with football screens in the neighboring hellhole across the pond, and so my own egress was sufficiently lubricated that even Derrick’s jokes were already funny.  Normally, such proximity between home and hearth tends to give one pause, but, at this point, having banked away hours of the commendable, who could give a damn, really, about a few sparks here and there?

Sometimes, it’s the person who doesn’t live nearby who’s the best guide; the everyday route home may not, in fact, be the most efficient and picturesque path to the next thing.  Your own pace, however, will eventually secure your arrival, albeit at your own pace, which is perfectly fine when you know where you’re going if not how to get there.

There might have been more but enough was plenty, a full night packed into half of it, well-deserved rest, well, deserved.