Clay posted this in his LiveJournal account, so I had to check it out.

OneWord is a 60-second writing exercise. They post a new word each day, and you have 60 seconds to write about whatever that word inspires. It’s very cool.

Today’s word was “home”.
Here’s what I posted:

Home is the place, they say, where people have to take you in, but for me, home isn’t a physical location, it’s the sense of well-being, of total safety and contentment I get when everyone I know and love, those I consider my family, are close by, and safe, and in harmony with each other. It’s a day at the beach with husband and dogs.

This post is taken from Wil Wheaton’s weblog

support our troops — send them your GMail invites!

I keep reading about how soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are having their tours extended long beyond when they expected to come home, and their morale is suffering as a result. Thankfully, many of our soldiers are able to stay in touch with friends and family via the Internet, but their e-mail access is often very limited.

Post continues here

* * *

There’s a slight breeze licking around my heels as I pad across the yard, and around the edge of the pool to the ladder. My bare feet make a light slapping sound on the pavement, but otherwise the only noise is the faint gurgling of the filter, and the soft liquid murmur of the water lapping at the edges of its confinement.

At the water’s edge, I lean on the two handles of the ladder, lifting first one foot, then the other, dipping each into the foot bath that prevents little specks of sand and grit from hitching a ride into the pool on the soles of my feet. Then, I look down at the top run of the ladder, before beginning my descent.

There are only three steps from the top rung to the low end of the pool, but I enter the water almost languorously, revelling in the sensations of cool water against too-hot flesh.

My feet touch the bottom of the pool, and my toes flex into the liner. Sometimes I think I can feel things moving in the earth far below the bottom, but I usually realize it’s just wishful thinking.

A song lyric floats into my head, as I lunge toward the deep end of the pool, my legs scissoring, my arms holding a float. Later, I’ll do real strokes, but this moment is for long glides from end to end, with the small styrofoam float as a toy, not a support.

For a moment, I’m a child again, lost in memories of days spent lingering in the water long past the time my grandmother wanted me out. “Your lips are blue,” she’d call. I’d always wanted a mirror, to see if she meant it.

I spend a luxurious hour splashing and swimming, laughing at my dog when she barks at the sound of my kicking, and lobbing (or attempting to) fistfuls of water at her. She looks so silly, trying to catch the droplets raining down on her fluffy white head.

Later, showered, and dressed in soft cotton loungewear, I’ll smooth on some lilac-scented hand lotion, and let my thoughts loose in the past, remembering the lavender wallpaper in the middle bedroom in my grandmother’s house, and how much I always longed to have a room that color.