UNEARTHING

I read this excerpt from Susan Cain’s book Bittersweet: “Have you asked where on earth is your closest approximation of home? Literally, if you sat down and wrote ‘Home’ at the top of a piece of paper and waited a while, what would you write?”

I tried this exercise to see what came out:
For me, Home is an island surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Far away from everything else – unique and unlike anything else. Home is green rolling hills and strong winds, the smell of rain and grass. It is quiet and spacious. It is where I breathe deep and I feel alone with my thoughts. Home is a place that is warm and cozy. It heals us and feels healing to others. It is comfortable and humble. It is good food and friends. It is day trips to sand and sea and mountains and forests, returning to hot showers and deep contentment. Home is falling asleep to the sound of rain and feeling gratitude for this life. Home is a place that I’m always happy to come back to. It is looking around and not seeing anyone for miles. It is the sunset and the moonrise. It is feeling safe as it gets dark. Home is the outside and the inside at the same time.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of home for a while since our move to California from Hawai’i two years ago. While I was born and raised in Hawai’i most of my life, and have left the islands and lived elsewhere for stretches at a time – Israel, Germany, South Korea, Washington, D.C., and California – this last move has been especially hard.

Brandi Carlisle’s cover of “Home” from The Wiz musical and featured on the season 3 finale of Ted Lasso has been a repeat on my walks as of late. It’s one of those songs that fills you up and wrings you out. In the song, the lyrics state:

Maybe there’s a chance for me to go back
Now that I have some direction
It would sure be nice to be back home
Where there is love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time be my friend, let me start again
Suddenly my world’s gone and changed its face
But I still know where I’m going
I have had my mind spun around in space
And yet I have watched it growing

This feeling that my body is in one place but my soul and heart are in another, has made me feel pulled and stretched in new ways. I visit home in my mind often and picture the people and places that make it so. I try to hold these moments lightly – not clinging too hard so that I can be present in the here and now, but also maintaining that connection. I feel that I’ve been on the hero’s journey of setting out from home, learning and growing through pain and joy and experience, hopefully someday to return with new wisdom and insight.

What does home mean to you? Is it a place? A community? A feeling within?

Moon over Hoku’ula
Waimea, Hawaii