A 3-week, 4600-mile road trip from southern California to
Home Sweet Home, Maine...
(One of my favorite photos from the whole trip; Ray snapped this driving north from Bozeman, Montana, while the co-pilot/photographer was on the phone with her mother making plans to meet in North Dakota for a family reunion.)
Thoughts On Home
I believe that our ultimate home is a spiritual place we're all heading. However, as always, I find there are more layers beneath and within this belief...
I found a rhythm, a comfort, a homeyness within the routine of a road trip for those three weeks.
I reconnected with a certain rootedness as we went with my Mom to the farm where she grew up, and also spent some time in the places of my childhood, which led to some resolving of what my home was in reality back then and letting go of the idea of home I had thought I wanted.
A realtor distinctly referred to our current dwelling as having the feel of a
home rather than a house.
And being back, with my love, after being away for eighteen months,
I agree that there certainly is a difference between a house and a home. Even though plans are to move forward at some point from this home, I know I am blessed to be home, to be here now. I now know and claim that what I am blessed with is not contained in or restricted by these particular walls, though this home will always have a special place in my heart.
For me, home is an internal place which is not static, and I am discovering that becoming aware of the present (dual meaning intended) home rather than trying to attain some feeling, or idea of a feeling, from the past or the future, is where peace lies. It is to be who you are, wherever you are, so yes, one of the most difficult journeys we take.
On the other hand, home is just a word, yet I am reminded of how words can have the power to confine or liberate us. Perhaps home is simply a representation of personal experience in meaning and sentiment, and evolving through each phase of life naturally.
What does home mean to you... is it defined by people, a certain place, a feeling, a time,
Is it heaven on earth, grounding, a place of renewal and growth, a sanctuary, comforting, safe, impermanent,
ever-changing, consistent, elusive...
THE HOUSE OF BELONGING ~ David Whyte
I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that
thinking for
a moment
it was one
day
like any other.
But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought
it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room,
it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep,
it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.
And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love,
this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.
This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next
and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light,
the tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first
roof of light
the sun has made.
This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.
This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.
There is no house
like the house of belonging.
