Outside it is a calm, cool, almost cloudy spring day.  You woke up feeling relaxed, deliciously unfocused.  Your body is pleasantly sore from a week of strengthening and healing.  It is the kitchen that eventually calls to you between nursing your last cup of coffee and tinkering with words at your writing desk.  You want the pure comfort of baking.

You put on the kettle for tea.  Your rummage through recipes--both in the books stacked against one wall of your kitchen and in the files of your mind--until you land on another idea entirely: time to play, toy with a new muffin recipe.

Slowly, you gather your supplies.  Two kinds of flour and too many seeds to keep track of, shredded carrots and apples, your favorite spices, cinnamon, and ginger.  You whisk together eggs and milk, flour and spices.  When your mix is ready, you spoon it into your muffin tins, already anticipating the warm treat that awaits you soon, so soon.

You pop your muffin batter into the oven and set the timer.  While you putter around the house--washing your baking dishes and flipping through your bookshelf--the rich scent of cinnamon and brown sugar waft through the oven, perfuming your home with a sense of comfort and well being.

It isn't until you pull the muffins out from the oven and bite into the still-too-hot treats that you feel the warmth in your belly, the cozy tingling in your spine that tells you all is well with the world.

You are at peace.  You are at home.