What does "home" mean? There are endless ways to answer that question, from the practical to the mystical to the metaphysical. So many ways to approach it in fact, that framing a journey, or a lifetime, with such a question can be daunting at best, hopeless at worst. Such a journey, or lifetime, would be so filled with intersecting philosophies and crisscrossed trains of thought that the travel itself would be lost. The actual living lost in a tangle of definitions and categories and ideas.
So I'm going to ignore that question, because I don't believe that that is the stuff that life is made up of. The question that I'm going to focus on instead is, what does it mean to find home? This seems like no less of a horrible question, but I like it better because it focuses on a feeling. The feeling of finding home is singular and recognizable. It is a feeling that I have felt before, to varying degrees. The feeling of homecoming is like falling in love or looking at the stars; it is felt in moments, it can be felt many times in a lifetime, and each instance is infinitely magical. I've never once looked up at the stars and not been filled with unending wonder, whether I was seeing a scattering, the entire milky way, or simply Orion's belt. Such is it with coming home.
And so I'll embark on this journey with this feeling in mind. Not necessarily searching for it, for sometimes the searching itself can get in the way (like trying to look at the little squiggles in your vision only to have them flee to your periphery), but being ready if it arises. Whether it arises at the foot of a doorway, the swing of a tool, the look in someone's eyes, the curve of a river. or not at all remains to be seen, and I remain open to the possibilities. As for what "home" actually means, I'll leave that to philosophers and mapmakers. I've got a plane to catch.
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