Going Home

Three weeks from today I will have just landed in London. Actually, in two weeks, 6 days, and 22 hours. I have trouble finding words to express how important this is to me. My father first moved to London when I was 9, though really I've been an anglophile for as long as I can remember, raised on The Vicar of Dibley and Flying Circus, and when my sister and I played as children we more often than not used English accents. When I finally made it to the UK for the first time at 13 I immediately felt at home. Every trip over there since has felt like putting things back in their proper place.

Right now especially, I could use some mise en place. The last six months have been full of many different kinds of upheaval, and I realize I have felt pretty removed from myself for quite a while. I'm making steady moves to get back in touch with my self and my center (more on that soon) but it will help tremendously to return to a place where I have an innate feeling of placement and familiarity, and to visit my father and dear friends who live there.

As someone who has moved a lot, loves to travel, and is building a house, I spend a lot of my time thinking about "home." I've never been homesick. I've never felt particularly attached to any of my dwellings. I have never experienced the classically defined sense of home. I love to explore and can find merit in most every place I go, and I think that largely this benefits me, the perfect recipe for a consistently happy camper. But this roaming way of life only really works if your rooted self, the foundation you can count on, is a strong spiritual and mental one, and lately for me it hasn't been. I still want the same things but have felt like I'm ghosting several inches to the side of where I really stand. My roots are all still there but I'm not currently connected to them. When I was 13 and first visited Scotland, I remember writing in my journal frequently during the months after that I had left at least part of my heart there. I still feel that same ache every time I leave, and I know it will do my soul immeasurable good to be closer to one of the places where part of my heart dwells.

Here's to finding your roots, whether you find them in a physical place or carry them within. Here's to the foundation from which you grow. Here's to home.