Word for today: home Its where the heart is, right? Home is where you leave your heart so that you will know where to return when you wander away or travel the world. Today I am packing up and driving back home to the people and pets I love, but Im also leaving home. I grew up here and lived a large part of my life in Maine, and every time I get ready to leave this place I realize almost half of my heart never fully leaves when I depart. That makes this place my home, not just the place I grew up once upon a time. Every journey here is returning home for me, and events like weddings and reunions only serve to remind me of this in a multitude of ways. That anyone remembers me after decades have passed without a peep amazes me. That I can recall details from a quarter century ago or more gives me faith that Ive not completely lost all of my marbles. We have all aged, some have grown up, others grown old. Time has a way of both reminding us of how many sunrises have passed since the heydays of youth, and of completely erasing their passages as we recall funny or touching moments we shared together. One rendition of Sweet home Alabama sung at the top of your voice or Love Shack and Im not 54 any longer. Im transported to a time in life that feels a lot like home, when dancing was a regular ritual and smiles were easy and given away for free. Home is not really a single place I guess, its every place where I left a little piece of myself along the way, like crumbs in the woods in case I get lost. I remember these friends because they are really my alternate family. They are so kind as to call me family themselves, even though I am fickle in my visits and unreliable in my contacts and uneven in who I seek out when Im heading up for a spell. They treat me better than I deserve, I try in my way to make up ground but Im always woefully behind. I can send up birthday and holiday gifts, but really the stuff is not what makes a home. An actual home with 4 walls is in fact just a place to keep things in a way. If everything were gone tomorrow these people would still treat me with the same graciousness they do every single time I walk through their doorways. They love me because they know me, known a part of my life before I got caught up with my own work and marriage and all the other things I chase to make it relevant. They make me relevant by my just being me, because they knew me when thats all I ever was in the world. When I lost sight of that Im not sure, but it is a great blessing and an amazing grace to have people like this, who keep the home fires burning for you even when you dont come home to see them for sometimes many, many years. It is the gift of home that God gives that is the greatest gift of all. Those places where a calm love lives, where you know you could go if everything else fell away. I was having a disagreement with my best friend the other day about the legacy her mother left for her siblings. She felt the legacy was that all of her siblings were made to feel like family was the most important thing. I disagreed vehemently for my reasons, my memories are different. But I was a little bit wrong. While I can guarantee that the way it arrived this way was where the disagreement between us is found, after watching her and her siblings care for their ailing mother last night, she has given them- in her way- a great sense of family. It is a home they will always have even though the walls and floors are not tangible. They have created it themselves, though they may not recognize their own tracks in the sands of time. My view is one that sees how siblings reach out one to the other to make sure no one gets lost. They see a more matriarchal perspective that is more subjective. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I envy them these sibling relationships, this metaphysical familial home they have found with each other. That they sometimes include me in its ranks makes me a very fortunate person indeed. Home is where love lives. I have a lot of homes, places where I left a little bit of myself behind sort of like a horcrux from a Harry Potter novel. Locations in life and with people that I can resurrect to remind myself that I am never alone, that love survives and thrives in the most surprising and challenging of places. Truth be told I can choose to make my home anywhere I go, as long as I pack enough love with me to leave a sprinkle behind when I depart.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 13:05:42 +0000