As I ponder over notions of home a friend writes to tell of his house’s subsidence. Everything is falling in, sliding down, moving. He sounds so distressed. Who wouldn’t be? I try to tell myself it’s only a house. It’s not. Is it? And there’s the family down the road. And their big house, unlit this year. No Christmas decorations or tree. After 28 years of marriage the parents’ have separated. He’s left. She stays. It’s all an undoing of some established order. And it unsettles.
