"He greeted me back to what had once been my home."

 "He greeted me back to what had once been my home."

OK, yes, yes, I have mixed a quote from "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" with artwork from "The Adventure of the Empty House." Odd, I know, but the combination is representative of my situation at the moment in relation to my good friends, Dr. John H. Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes. 

We are all familiar with the events that unfold when Sherlock Holmes suddenly appears in Watson's waiting room after three years "dead" and immediately takes up Watson as a comrade in arms again. They spend an interesting night watching Baker Street from across the way. One of my favorite quotes comes from that evening:

In the dim light I saw his head thrown forward, his whole attitude rigid with attention. Those two men might still be crouching in the doorway, but I could no longer see them. All was still and dark, save only that brilliant yellow screen in front of us with the black figure outlined upon its centre. Again in the utter silence I heard that thin, sibilant note which spoke of intense suppressed excitement.

Watson has Holmes beside him but he is still not clear on what is happening in Baker Street, nor is the place he is watching his home any longer. It is achingly familiar, of course, as is the man by his side in the empty house but the relationship is not quite what it once was, and certainly Baker Street is not home again, yet. But, he wants to be a part of it again; he wants to hear those thin sibilant notes, to have a little excitement related to Sherlock Holmes. I'm feeling much the same way about my relationship with Holmes, Watson and, in many ways, the greater Sherlockian world at the moment. 

Due to unexpected family obligations, I've been somewhat distant from Holmes, Watson, and their living community for weeks and weeks. I've hardly read a word, hardly written a word, hardly had a Sherlockian conversation. I've attended one Sherlockian event since BSI weekend in January. I'm not entirely certain I've attended more than one Sherlockian zoom since then.  If not for housekeeping on the manuscript for Sherlock Holmes Into the Fire and the Terror of Blue John Gap project, it might be realistic for me to say I've not been "Sherlocking" at all. 

I'm not up to date on any meetings, publications, videos, podcasts, or even gossipy arguments going on in the greater Sherlockian community. I feel very separated from it all. I'm ready to come back home. The family issues are not entirely solved or returned to normal, but they are getting closer to being so. I need to have one of those moments like Watson had at the opening of CREE:

It was one Sunday evening early in September of the year 1903 that I received one of the Holmes's laconic messages: 'Come at once if convenient — if inconvenient come all the same...With a wave of his hand he indicated my old arm-chair, but otherwise for half an hour he gave no sign that he was aware of my presence.  Then with a start he seemed to come from his reverie, and, with his usual whimsical smile, he greeted me back to what had once been my home.

Watson said he had become one of Holmes's habits. Their world is one of my habits. It is a rut I long to return to, convenient or otherwise. Here's hoping I find my way back before too much longer. I look forward to being greeted back to what had once been my home, too.