Welcome Home

Without fail, I look at the little black suitcase sitting by the door waiting for me to drag it to some new and distant land, and I think "where is home?" or maybe more appropriately "is there home?".

I have to say that, once again, I drag little black behind me and know definitively what the answer to that questions is: I still wander with no home.

It was a little jarring to come to understand this time that Vermont is really not home for me anymore. I guess I've so much wanted to belong to one place that I have clung to the idea of VT as home for a long time, but honestly, I've lived outside of VT longer than I ever lived there. True, I absolutely love the place and will talk a good game about how it's certainly the best place on the mainland. However, I think I claim it more than it claims me. So having come unhinged from that homeland, I float even more easily with the little black suitcase following closely behind.

Ever attributing all symbolic and coincidental things to have some true meaning, I left Hawaii two weeks ago for this two months, and sat with my suitcase, tugging and tugging to try to zip it shut. The zippers have been broken for a little while now, and I have to struggle to close it. Little black is tired, worn out, and begging for some rest, I suppose. Looking for some healing and repairing for awhile before heading out again.

But where to stop? The heart feels decidedly torn between where I am going and where I departed from. Seems like I could easily unpack the suitcase in Africa, and never repack it again. But interestingly, it really feels like Hawaii would be weighing on my heart and soul if it was Africa where I stopped.

And what I'm really thinking is that I need to go to Africa this time (obviously to go to World Cup!!!) but also maybe to have some temporary closure with the place that has been making me wonder ever since I left two years ago. It's like Lesotho is the man I left because of extenuating circumstances, and I've always wondered if we would have been perfect together had I not had to leave. But maybe it's just the folly of history and fond memory. Maybe the reason I left is because I would have been unhappy eventually had I stayed. I do realize this very moment that I love everywhere I've lived because I've never made it out of the honeymoon stage with any place. Never learned the things that drive me crazy and just don't work for me.

So if I really think about it, that feeling of stepping across the border in Maseru holds a tremendous amount of excitement for me...but truthfully, the thought of stepping off the plane in Honolulu holds just as much if not more.

Interesting truths each time I make these extended breaks from somewhere. Maybe I'll never feel like I can really call someplace home. Maybe that's the nature of life for me. And even if I have some closure with Africa right now, I know that I'll probably go back there in a couple of years. And if I continue to move every two years or so, it'll be impossible to say that I'm really from anywhere.

However, what I'm finally seeing is that taking home with me is a true possibility. It's never seemed like that feeling would materialize, that I would always want to attribute home to a physical location. So little black and I probably just need some time to recuperate every once and awhile, to fix the zippers and unpack for awhile. We'll keep moving, but wherever we go next, we'll remember to take home with us. And we'll do it with Osibisa singing* to us.

*click to listen