What I Learned In the Last 48 Hours About Thieves

It feels like three years have passed since Wednesday. Click here for part one of this story that I first reported when my home was robbed the day after Christmas. Since then, I've learned a few things.

I'm writing in spurts in a stream of consciousness. I had a few silly Christmas capers all ready to share with you this week but they will have to wait while I get this out of my system. Now, I am sometimes angry, sometimes sad... and at times, a sliver of "pencil skirt" is beginning to wrap its brain around this. Today is anger. I hope you don't mind.

My home is my sanctuary.

I have designed it that way. It is a perfect writer's bungalow with oodles of privacy and even though I complain about the upkeep, I love my space. The view out my window in the fall is soothing to my soul, the winter snows are laced with porch pansies inspired by my grandmother's plants and the trees.......oh the trees......they each have character and strength. A face. A story. A name.

I know them.




My home is more than a house to me.

I can sit near the foliage high on the deck and think and read and pray and wonder. Underneath Bloggingham's large rocks are hidden little seedlings of buttercups I planted years ago, azalea bushes entrenched one sunny spring day that peppers the mountain with pink blooms. Growing too wildly underneath the front deck are boxwood bushes transplanted from my father's father's farm. Inside the tool shed is my grandfather's handmade toolbox mounted on the wall - the one I saw him reach inside many many times as a child. His healing hands on a wooden latch. A laugh from his wise old face. Perfectly designed by his own carpenter's hands....now graces my little shed.

My home is more than a house to me.

And what happens when someone you don't know treads upon that private space? What happens when a thief tries to steal your peacefulness.....



You think twice before you step outside to water your pansies.




You find yourself seething with anger for someone you never met, someone who became all too familiar with who you are.

You pick up your pajamas and remember they've now been viewed by a stranger.

You put them down.
And you cry.

You wash. You scrub. You fumigate.

Around every corner of your house is a potential Boo! Is he there? Are they back? What's that noise? Was that there before? Did I leave that there? Do I hear talking on the porch? Do I smell cigarette smoke? Where did I leave my phone? And my keys? And my running shoes......just in case.....

A million questions you never asked before are now part of the protection phase you're in. And even asking them you know yourself - in the logical part of your brain - that your emotions are holding sway over your common sense.

You take the phone in the bathroom, slide chairs under the door latch and check to see if your car is locked ten times a day. You get your shopping finished before dark. And you don't go to sleep anymore. I am now drifting off from exhaustion, however, because my mind is in overdrive.


Do you sit by the window with the curtains open?

Or do you close them..........something to think about now.

Should I watch the sunset from inside tonight? Or do I walk about as I usually do and smell the setting of the sun........Who is watching if I do..... ?
Do they see me?
Or do they see what I see?

.... a magnificent spectrum of sky through trees I love and privacy I cherish

....beautiful clouds spilling stories I've yet to tell

....and peacefulness.


Stillness.

No.

This person, whoever he is, and whatever possessed this person to do such a thing, knows no peace.

And I'll be damned if he's going to steal mine.