HOME.

I’ll be honest, moving to a new place and starting again has been difficult. When I say difficult I mean uncomfortable, lonely, and overwhelming. I have started new many times in my life.

I was the new kid at school, the new kid on the team, the new teacher in town—all of it. I have been new many times. There were times this starting new was a fesh shedding of skin and stepping into new freedom, possibilities and ways. The excitement outweighed the grief of letting go, or the fear of the unknown.

When you move and start in a new place not to be born again by the freshness, but to deepen into commitments and bonds to which you have dedicated your heart, the feeling is different. You feel all the feelings of grief for the home you had preciously created. You feel the fear of what-if.

The more new places I reseed myself into, the more I understand that the only real home is the home of the flesh. Home is the temporary temple of body that ephemerally houses the ritual you make out of time. Home is the breath. Home is the ground of feet.

Body-homes require constant upkeep and cleaning. So I practice yoga, dance, and meditation.

The only other real home is the home you find in peoples hearts and souls. The home you make inside the heart of your beloved. The home you make in the eyes of your friend that sees you truly, deeply.

These are the only real homes we have. And even they too are temporary.

Sometimes, when I feel adrift and frazzled I find myself saying to myself “I want to go home. I just want to go home”.  I have been told that sometimes as a young child, I was inconsolable crying, “I just want to go home” even though I was in my room.

In those moments of dissolution, I turn to the doorstep at the foot of my heartbeat. I enter into the pauses and rooms of space inside my own breathing. This body. This temple. This home. I am already home. Then I hang the image of my beloved on the walls of this home inside.

And when you are living in a place that doesn’t actually feel like the home you created with your own two hands and single heart, the home of the inside is a nice place to lay your head.