What came to mind immediately was Jimmy Buffett’s classic “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”. Love that song and hope to live it someday. However, while I’m still mostly “Mom” the word that is most important to me is “home” and my home is far from perfect. However, I have a lot of pride in what it is, because I think what it has makes up for everything it lacks, at least to the people who belong to it.

The attitude within is more important than the circumstances without.

Welcome Home
By Michelle Garren-Flye

We may be small, we may be broken,
the kitchen’s not clean, there’s dust 
everywhere and the laundry was forgotten—
but what we do have here is a must.

You feel it as soon as you walk in:
a warmth lacking in tidier spaces,
a friendly smell of meals that have been
eaten in peace in this humblest of places.

Maybe it’s love, maybe it’s life lived well—
or just reliably there although you may roam?
It’s much more than just a place you can dwell,
and whatever it is, it makes this a home.

Posting a poem at 3 p.m. today because I crawled into bed at 5 a.m. this morning after a long trip back from the school trip. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a chaperone, but I’m relieved to turn all those fantastic teenagers back over to their parents.

This fortune seemed to lend itself to rhyming couplets, so that’s what I went with. However, I am uncertain if there is a true rhyme for “failure” so the end, I felt, fell a little flat. Thus the title lol. Not to mention it somewhat describes my brain today.

Anyway, enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Success walks hand in hand with failure.

It Hits a Little Flat
By Michelle Garren-Flye

Let’s take a walk, come be my guest.
When you get tired, we’ll take a rest.

Trust me, my intentions are pure!
Deceits and cons could not be fewer.

One thing only I must confess
I want your life to be a success.

Does my promise have no allure?
Then you may be doomed to failure.