My porch was falling apart. The boards were rotten and the pergola was on the verge of falling upon some unsuspecting person's head. The exterior of the house (my house and I are the same age) was showing the cracks of its 61 years. And so--I launched a face lift. (Maybe I should have launched one upon my own face?)

This has been an extraordinary journey, remodeling a house. It's cost about twice what I planned and has already taken twice the time projected three weeks ago. Some days I'm euphoric with the whole process; a couple of days I've been in tears. I'm learning a whole new language as I listen to workers, electric guy, and the contractor conversing. I'm shopping for paint colors, door knobs, and light fixtures. I'm sleep deprived and cranky and worried that I'm depleting my IRA funds.

As a friend pointed out, the house in dreams is really the Self--in Jungian terms. My Self is being demolished, prettied up, and made stronger. Four or five men a day are pounding upon my surfaces, scraping, and discovering "issues" that I didn't know were there.

Ultimately, it's all good. It's going to be beautiful! And sound. And ready for inspection. I'll probably live in it for the rest of my life--just as I live in my skin. I love it like an old friend.

"You keep changing your mind," the contractor says. True. I do. It's been like writing a book, and I am a perfectionist, a constant editor. I can't say with certainty that a "sentence" is going to work until I see the paragraph it's going to be a part of, can I?

Two years ago, I ran away from home for a year. My house was on the market. I, too, was on the market, more or less--trying to discover if I could make a new home in Georgia, far from my friends in Texas. When I came home, I slowly discovered--again--that THIS is home for me. Sometimes it takes running away to find that the treasure is right here, right where we are. What makes this home is, in part, this funky little house that was a gift to me, post-divorce, from my parents. What makes this home is that I have the best and dearest friends in the world, my beloved writing sisters.