Home

I don't believe in fate or the concept of destiny. I don't believe in paranormal activity. I can't wrap my mind around life after death or the idea of Heaven. Yet I can say with heart-felt honesty and conviction that I am SUPPOSED to be with JBL. It is an absolute like F=MA. I also admit that I have visited a medium and may - just a tiny bit - believe what he said about my dad. I am a dichotomy. I don't know who the hell I am. But I know some things are true at a level that is deeper than bone-deep. My certainty goes down deeper than my molecules. My certainty is at the sub-quark level, where there is more light than mass.

Things happen to me that are....what, serendipitous? Let me give some examples. Is it any surprise that my grandfather was there to give me money for the down-payment on my first house? Or that a friend-of-a-friend offered me a part-time, work-from-home job almost the instant J was ready for preschool? Good timing is all, you might say. But wait. Is it odd that JBL and I had the fight that permanently redefined our relationship in an establishment called the Crossroads Pub? Or that, when I was truly beginning to question my sanity, J brought home a stuffed animal wood thrush (complete with an accurate song that plays when you squeeze it)? Or that at the end of 2009 JBL fractured a rib that caused him intense pain in the region of his heart for months? Ok so that last one did not happen to me, but go with me on this.

It is no shock that last winter included a case of the shingles, back-to-back blizzards and a visit from the stomach flu fairy. Then things stabilized. Over the summer I had more work than I could handle (read: $$$) and possibly the most relaxing family vacation I have ever experienced. Then, based on practicality rather than knee-jerk emotion, JBL and I decided we would sell Sleepy Hollow. Everything about the decision felt good and right, perhaps because it coincided with the consideration of a house that was new (and pretty and filled with things we can't afford - a house that ultimately fell out of the running...but anyway).

I know we are going to move. In more ways than one, we have to move. I am looking forward to all the opportunity will afford us. Yet, I am painfully aware of what we will lose. As I struggle to reassure myself about the decision, I begin to see heavy-handed hints all around. What does home mean, really? The concept of place has always held a great deal of weight for me. So am I surprised to stumble upon this passage in my bedtime book Cutting for Stone? No. "...that loamy soil that nurtured Matron's roses was in my flesh. I said Ethyo-pya like a native.... The Entoto Mountains disappearing in darkness framed my horizon; if I left, those mountains would sink back to the ground, descend into nothingness; the mountains needed me to gaze at their tree-filled slopes, just as I needed them to be certain I was alive.... Light and dark. The General and the Emperor. Good and evil. All possibilities resided within me, and they required me to be here. If I left, what would be left of me?"

My answer to that question came quickly. I find peace and connection with place in many areas - take the Outer Banks for instance. It is easy to love a beach town in summer, but what makes it feel like home is also the easy rhythmic quality of our days regardless of the house we rent. JBL and I move around each other the same way in any kitchen, and enjoy wine together under the stars from any deck. Music is always with us, and the girls sleep peacefully as long as we are all together. Should I be taken aback, then, to come upon BHJ's recent post (dedicated to his mom), reflecting in part on this topic? Not at all. As usual, his words resonate intensely for me. He writes, "Imagine being home - how being home is an abundance of answers to questions you can't remember." Yes.

Home for us here is undoubtedly tied to the row of trees at the bottom of our hill, all of the little things we've put into this house to make it uniquely ours, and the love of our friends Sarah, Thor, and their kids. But I picture us in a home, any home, and the walls and land around can fall away like theater props. I may feel like this grass and this street is home to me now. But what is true and right, something I know deep deep in my soul, is that home will be wherever these three other people are. JBL, J and K are my answers and my place, and are more of a safe haven than any structure or location could ever be. Amen.

Updated 4/14/2011 - And it should be no surprise to anyone that the house we found to move into is 2004 Diane Lane. J's birth year and my mother's name. And it has beech trees in the front yard.