Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke,
or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.
~ Charles Dickens
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We’ve had a lot of rain. All day, all night for weeks rain. The kind long-timers say they’ve never seen. The kind with job security for roofers. But grace can reign at dawn if heavy sheets of clouds are shredded. And I take my walk to the bay. I’m always looking up here. Florida skies hold a sort of splendor I’m positive isn’t anywhere else. Colors and hues that seem more from crayon boxes and little girl dreams than real. Clouds that light up, change form and shape, sail so quickly they look VFX. Locked beneath the urban-glow veil as I am, though, stars are illusive. I search, anyway. Thinking my best chance when nightlife’s dimmed and homes slumber. A count of more than a few gets me excited. A familiar constellation, like I spied last week, makes me rejoice.
That was a strange moment. I immediately plummeted with the thought constellations are the brightest, most visible stars. And my mind flashed to a recent shot of the Milky Way by a photographer who chronicles the west the way my heart does. Through landscape, vistas, and sky. His young son often in them these days, a tiny boy looking comfortable in big, wild places. For the hundredth time I wondered if I’d ever see stars again while home. See them like I did in 1994 Santa Fe where we lived in the middle of 500 then-undeveloped acres close to town (I like living close to town). Each night my head rocked back, eyes skyward. The Milky Way coursing above me. Kerjillions of twinkling lights on the night ceiling. And I questioned how I missed the spectacle in Flagstaff, a dark-sky city, just a few years before. Wondered perhaps stars hold something of home for me. Because I don’t feel smaller when I gaze at the cosmos as some do. I feel INFINITE.
Home is up for me right now. I like where I live. This 1910 house with character and the things I need + a great porch. The bay, multitudes of birds close by. Palm trees I’m completely enamored with. Easy town. But we’ve been challenged in supporting ourselves since we moved to FL. Good that it’s pushed me out into the greater world with my work (another tangent of fragility). Bad that it feels scary months and months on end.
I had to pull out my Remember This List. The one that says redefine quantities as qualities. As in a sense of space for having large space (I tamp down, become small in a small space. not good). Focus on priorities, never compromise on things that matter – light, space, flow, a far view to rest my gaze, gathering of familiar beauty and meaning, ease moving through – things of the heart. Remember I’m a creator, that creators live with shadows and generalities as the form grows, gets clear. Keep moving forward. And when home’s up, look everywhere for inspiration. Pull it inside, let it roll around. Pay attention.
The little fellow below arrived in a calendar. They start in August. Ocean Conservancy and National Wildlife Fed. I’ve tried asking they save a tree, share I only recycle for collage that never really happens. I didn’t recycle this little fish, tho. He sits on my desk because his face looks just how I feel as I study and plan, set a course with intent to help others live a life more fully present. I love this little fish. Love his beautiful home & refuge. Especially the way it flows. Feels like the stars in the milky way, actually. Or like the night I paused on a steep, rough, ridiculously narrow road wedged between cliffs and the sea in Santorini, Greece. Gazed at a star salted black sky. Tide and silence the main sounds. I choose to think these are clues, not straws I’m grasping. That they’re practice in twisting my head a different way, seeing the shape of my life with new eyes. Redefining to qualities. The gift at the end, more desired choices. Perhaps, even stars.
What’s home mean to you?
Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life
“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
~ James Baldwin (from Giovanni’s Room)
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A secret: A few months ago something went wrong at the salon. Turned my red hair shockingly dark brown. Not once in the fourteen weeks without my red hair did I feel at home with my reflection in the mirror. I hated it, in fact. A lesson in another aspect of home (among other things).
A favorite: Hearth (a nest word) contains the words heat, eat, earth, art, heart, he, her, hear, tea(!), are.
Photos:
Milky Way, by Yang Wen
True Percula Clownfish, by Kirsten Himelein
I think that this is an open, inviting meditation on “home”. What about those who carry their homes around with them during the day: crabs, snails, turtles, nomads? I wonder about these adventurers who do not respect boundaries nor private property, yet they are most private and solitary. They represent a solid definition of, “home is where the heart is.” And then I think of my mother’s body: abandoned by her spirit like a too small shell, cast off by a growing hermit crab. It was no longer her home and she lives on only in my heart.
Beautiful contemplation beautifully expressed, Jenni.
Yes, the heart. Yes, the place. Not always so straight forward. I’m in exploration. What I’ve learned about my feelings re. home by the many places and different homes I’ve lived in. Observing, journeying with friends on different paths. Shaking myself open.