The Journey Home.
It’s been so long. I wasn’t sure I would ever find my way back. To here, to where I can write freely. So much has happened since the retreat, truly life changing events. The retreat, the weeks after, the holidays, the work experiences, the life. But most of all the relationships. Some changed profoundly, and left themselves open for even more growth. These were gifts I didn’t see coming. The very best kind. The ones crafted with the years and love, and learning, and growth, and prayers. The ones that last forever.
I think that I want to hold most of that private and precious. To settle into my heart, and just be.
But in the last few days there’s been something running through my mind..a lot. Something that I do feel is share worthy, and not quite so intimate. It’s this feeling I have felt lately, of the possibility of opening myself up to two homes, not just one, but two homes. Homes, such as the centers of our Universe.
Just like I always believed, up until a few years ago, that we had a finite, limited amount of space in our hearts, for love. I really did believe that. That our hearts were a certain size, and could not love more than just so much. That changed with yoga, and with meditation. Now I believe we have can have many homes. As many homes as we have places in our heart to call homes. And that is not a number, but a feeling we get, instead.
For instance; I was born and raised till the age of seventeen or so, in Springfield. In different homes, but in this, my hometown, Springfield. I was raised on this soil, these freshly tarred roads, drank this well water, sat at these streams and climbed these beautiful trees. Rode horses on this grass and smelled all there was to smell. It was all I knew. It was home. It’s where brothers and sisters were always by my side, and where they sometimes also died. It was home. I believed then, that you were allowed only one “true” home. Forever, end of story.
But then, looking forward to this summer’s vacation to West Hartford, my heart is telling me very loudly, that I am again, going home. Going to another home. A home I spent nearly 30 years in. More than that other home. More than any home. A home where I raised my daughter, went to college, learned to drive, was mothered by a mother, more of a mother, than my own mother. We suffered together watching loved ones get ill and lose their abilities, and sadly die. My family all around me. Always through this. This other family, in this other home.
The many, many celebrations, and holidays, the Easters and Christmases and Hanukkah’s, the sacred Friday night dinners around the table, with ex-husbands, ex-brother-in-laws, ex-everything’s, but really not ex-anythings. Current. Family. Always. Centerpieces, always centerpieces and candy. And real cloth napkins, and manners and ill mannered dogs.
I can’t wait to see the beautiful sights, the green hills and forests and oh so many trees. And the best rose garden ever. And the ill mannered dogs again. And the other mother. And my daughter, and her children, and my closest friend always, Christine. Who slyly led me away from my home and comfort zone, one Christmas Eve, to go have an adventure in San Francisco. And we did. She, who is the friend who is also my spiritual heart, and teacher-guide, forever. (She also accompanied me on my first roller coaster ride, when I came to my own point of letting everything go, for the first time, putting my faith in God’s hands, instead of my own.)
But what does that make Springfield then, when I desperately ache to return again to this home, as I know I will, after I go home to Hartford? This loving husband and life, and cat and job and happiness and my sacred space, that make up my life now, today. everyday. The sometimes not so glittery, not so perfectly wonderful, not so perfect everyday sort of home. This home now. Here and now. Every second of every day.
Those same woods remain, but changed, those railroad tracks are still here, these brothers and sisters, and high school friends memories all remain the same, here.The dirt, the water, the air, it’s all the same. It’s only I who have changed, really. But then again have I? If given my druthers, each and everyday, I would call Rebecca and Gale and invite them over to ride Navajo, and Heart, our old family horses, and I would make them a fried egg afterwards, that they would remember forever.
I have followed as my daughter returns frequently to her childhood home, in Hartford. And sees old friends and remembers her history. But how she also is able to return home, with joy, to her home in DC, and her crazy, wonderful life there. She has at least two homes, maybe three, if we count Nantucket. Lucky girl.
So that is it. I guess I can let that go now. I’m not abandoning one for the other, I’m not saying one is better than the other, I’m just saying, that just like love, my heart can hold more than one home. It can hold as many as I am blessed with having. God’s grace is not for me to question, only to acknowledge. And today I am, Home Sweet Home.
navigating sixty 