The good was that I met a lot of people I still get to connect with via facebook. I learned a lot about the west, and mid-west. I got to meet most of my family. I know how to I learned to cook fried chicken properly in Kansas. I learned to hike 14ers, and can peaches from time in Colorado.
California was home for the bulk of my life. I love the ocean. I love the sun. I love gardening seven months a year. I consider myself a California girl. However, finding home has been a journey.
That was the bad part. I got so used to moving around, I didn't feel "at home"... anywhere. California is a big state. I was born in the Sacramento area, but again, that is quite the territory. When we visited a few weeks ago, I loved the warmth, the sun, running into old friends, and the family time. For the first time in my life, though, I didn't feel like coming back to Washington so I could pack and move right back.
Yesterday, I was pulling into the driveway of our church and the Daughtry song, "I'm Coming Home." started to play. First off, I didn't know this was a "cross-over" song. I listen to Christian music in the car. Air 1 if you want to know the exact station. The bright fall leaves swirled in the breeze and my friend was there in the parking lot as I pulled in. A strange, and unfamiliar feeling began to form a lump in my throat. I was home. I am home.
Washington state, the Spokane region became my home 12 years ago. When we came for the interview February 2002, we stayed up at Arbor Crest. It was the Historic Riblet Mansion. Sitting on the edge of a Cliff (Hence the name "Cliff House") you could see the entire Spokane region. I fell in love with the beauty of Spokane. I even said the words I now regret, "I LOVE the snow!" (Actually, I love looking at snow. From a window. Sipping hot chocolate mixed with coffee. I do NOT love driving in it. Snow is REALLY cold. It is frozen water under 30 degrees. And don't get me started on having to shovel that stuff).
Slowly, over the course of 12 years, I made friends; more in the last year than the rest of the 11 years combined. But that was really only a small part. Spokane became my home because I choose to grow here. I own a home here. I had both my kids here. I have been part of our church for eight years. I have at least five people I can count on day or night to help if I need it. Some people don't have anyone like that.
When you find the kind of home I am talking about, it becomes easy to forgive because it is what you want for yourself. You can let people in that have hurt you in the past because life is so very, very short. You discover your heart. You find that the walls you put up to protect your dwelling, family, and emotions were blocking your view of the sun.
I have a garden I have already plotted the crop and set aside the seed for Spring 2015. I have a sister that lives within 5 minutes that helps with my kids. Her husband and my kids can talk Star Wars. Which is great, because I don't understand what I haven't seen. I want to keep it that way.
Home is not just a location. People search their whole lives to find where they belong. Some, pass from earth never knowing what it means to be home. They try to find it in apartments, mansions, and buildings. They can try to make a home by forcing people to stay, or go. Some think home is a thing that can be purchased. But home is not a simple ingredient in life. It is a recipe.
Those younger than 30 may not know the theme song for Cheers. Make good use of youtube and look up the song. It may have been about a bar, but the sentiment is the there. It is a song about a place where people found family even if they weren't related by blood. The short version they played on television is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1irjgfMC3A
Home is people that love you, support you, and want you. Home should make you feel like nothing is too late or impossible. Home is the smell of pumpkin pie coming from the oven you and your husband installed together. Home is a place to mark on the wall how much your kids have grown. Home is enjoying a meal you grew from a seed. Home is walking into church and having people wave at you, even if you are a few minutes late. Home is being able to leave and visit anyone, anywhere, and always find when you return to your bed, a kind of sleep that is the most restful. Home is failure that found grace. Home is a place of love, anger, forgiveness, pain, frustration, joy, hope, and the appreciation of it all. When you enter the place you live, it is the faces of the ones you hold most dear shining back on you. It is a place that makes life's seemingly insignificant sounds a beautiful symphony.
Copyright November 7, 2014. I know this blog and all posts on it are wonderful. However, don't even think about copying, translating, or otherwise stealing this work. You have to ask. No permission from me= NO COPY. NO Kidding. If you take my work and call it your own, may a flock of roosters reside next to you for the rest of your life no matter where you live. I hope they crow at 2, 4, and 6 am for at least two minutes each time. May they remind you that you have to pee. So you have to get up each and every time. Don't be that person. Don't steal my stuff. It's just rude.
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