home.

home. Home. Homa. Oklahoma.

I don’t know where this image came from – people have been using it a lot this week. Maybe it came from this shirt designer from Tulsa? Maybe it’s been around a long time. But I like it.

Home is like family. When a place is really, truly Home… it may still be able to surprise you, but you know its strengths and weaknesses. You’ve seen it at its best and at its worst. You love it anyway. Maybe you love it just because you’ve seen it go through so much; because you know the depths (both good and bad) it can go to, how it behaves under pressure, how it gets knocked down but keeps standing up again and again and again. How, in its peaceful calm and its violent terrors, it is still beautiful. And you know it is worth going back to. And worth working for. And worth fighting for. And worth making it as strong as it can be, every time. The land gives us strength. We give our community strength. Our community gives the land strength. And back and forth.

Give me an EF-5 and not a Category 5, an EF-5 and not a Richter 10. They can all kill me when it comes right down to it… but when it comes right down to it, I can only ride one of them out from home. Were I to live somewhere else, it would not be home. Not like this.

Not like a quirky cousin, not like an old friend. Not like this place that I trust like any other to have the fortitude to pull together and come back stronger than it was before. Not like this place where I know - where we all know - we Okies can and will do this together. It's just what we do.

May you all be safe and sound and dry, and have all you need for health and comfort this week.