home
I recently returned home to Texas for a celebration at our family’s ranch outside of Austin. If the two hundred acres J. Drew Lanham grew up on in Edgefield, South Carolina are his Home Place, the ranch in Texas is mine.
I was reflecting in my journal this morning that it was a good trip home, because I was able to show up in Texas as my full self, a self that has continued to grow and evolve while I’ve lived away from Texas. A line or two later, I reflected on how good it feels to be home, meaning Montana.
I’ve come to realize that I can have two homes, because while home can be a place, home is about more than place. In reality, I have many homes.
It’s true for me that home is the crackle of caliche soil underfoot and live oak trees in Texas. But home is also wild coastal North Carolina and the sound of waves breaking on the shore. Home is Chema. Home is our dog Dory. Home is the sound of grackles and blue jays screaming in the trees. Home is the Bridger Mountain range in Montana, and paths that wind between Douglas Fir and Lodgepole Pine trees. Home is our yellow tent that we’ve camped in for six summers straight. Home is Wild Crumb Bakery. Home is the couch in our living room. Home is aspen trees waving in the wind. Home is a cup of chai tea on a fall morning.
I guess I’ve come to believe that home is about belonging, a place or space where I feel most myself. Home is comfort, and a sense of safety to explore and grow, and unconditional, reciprocal love. Perhaps home is even a way of being in the world. And the more I cultivate comfort with myself, and safety with myself, and self-compassion or unconditional love for myself, the more I bring home with me, so that I am at home wherever I go.
Affirmations:
I belong to myself.
I belong to the earth.
I belong wherever I go.
I am home wherever I go.
Prompts:
Where, or what, is home to you?
Where, or with who, do you feel most yourself, and most at home?
P.S. I am enjoying reading J. Drew Lanham’s Home Place. You can find Home Place at your favorite independent bookstore.