“There is no place like home.”
~ L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
That word might be a trigger for you as well as it is for me. HOME means so much to so many for so many reasons-joyful and not so much.
But you had to be living under a rock if you hadn’t been made aware, nor worse, been impacted by the raging fires, floods, mudslides, volcanoes, explosions, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wars, etc. that have drop-kicked millions around the globe from their homebased lives onto foundationless ash and rubble. Beloved memories, cherished pictures and letters and family treasures lost in the smoke and ethers. Plus, far too many lives lost-trapped and buried in the unimaginable maelstrom. Gone in a blink.
We can zero-in on the horror of it all, but we’d need new vocabularies to describe the infinite limitless horror. Yet, that’s not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk about the thing that got me off the floor and faced a new day when my own home was ripped out from under me. My beloved home in the Hollywood Hills, California, some 30+ years ago when my reality was destroyed– after divorce and raising our beautiful sons and living the kind of heavenly life that only began when those two boys were born. I was reborn with them.
So, when all the material wonderful stuff I adored so much was taken away-crushed by the crash and burn of a 25+ year marriage and unthinkable bankruptcy pulling my beautiful home out from under me, I thought I would die.
Indeed, I wanted to die.
I needn’t go into the painful details-that’s for another time. But for now, I want to shine a light on a truth I had to ultimately embrace when my life’s sudden shift hit the fan. I was catapulted from being a cozy homeowner into a castaway at nearly fifty years old. But here’s the thing. I was one of the lucky ones. I’m still standing and so were and are my loved ones. And that drop-kick years ago turned out to be a magical blessing I could have never imagined in a gazillion years.
I had been a spoiled, recalcitrant student, somewhat unconscious life-traveler, until I was meant to learn and grow and understand a whole new perspective. Ultimately, my senses were awakened by legions of teacher-angels along the way to assuage the panic over how I was ever going to survive.
But I did, because I had to. My beloved sons were off in their own worlds, but I had six animals to provide for.
Their dependency on me saved my life.
In order to get up off the floor, I had to stand tall and honor/depend on myself. Oh did I work hard! I was being guided to come home to the sustenance, courage and comfort I had always attributed to that place outside myself with the welcome mat I loved so much. The surprise?
The treasure of it all was always there within me. Who knew?
“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”
~ Author Unknown
So HOME, I began to realize, is not a place. It’s that thing inside of us that was there from the get-go. You know that saying well,
“Home is where the heart is.”
It’s true. You and your beating heart are keeping time to the very moment you’re living right now. YOU are HOME. I am HOME. That place back then no longer exists. Home is all things now. We can always tap into it, just like Glinda, the Good Witch said to Dorothy, saying that she always had the power to get back home. The poet Matsuo Basho said it so perfectly,
“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
What I needed to know, while I lived in shoebox after shoebox sized studios and garage apartments and some of the most delightful as well as gaggy places on the planet, was that it was me steering the ship. The home tucked inside my soul was what was fueling me to bloom where I was planted. Did I miss my beautiful rustic haven in Hollywood?
With all my heart. I still do, but in a deeper sense, it will always and forever be alive deep inside my soul. In my mind, I can and do visit it anytime I want to gather all the wealth of abundant memories–the love and joy it was filled with and bring it to every place I call home today, which is now blessedly with my precious husband Pete (“Peach”) and adorable doggo “Peaches” in Colorado.
The truth is, we really own nothing. We’re here to love and be loved and to lift ourselves and others up in every and any way we can. That’s it.
When my dear mother passed, all those material things she thought she needed were released. Once a child of the Depression, she held onto stuff upon far too much stuff. The reality was, in the end, when she was rolled down the hallway of the hospice to the funeral van, all she took with her was a colorful quilt covering her little body and a rose in her hands. That other stuff was simply baggage she no longer needed. When you die, you travel light.
So, if you or others dear to you are mourning the loss of a familiar gathering place, I hope you will ultimately realize that it was a gift then and is still a treasured gift within you as you begin to rebuild a new life. You can. You will.
Keep focusing on the power and strength and courage of you-and the good blessings remaining that are also influencing others to thrive as well. We are all students of and teachers for each other. Trust. Surrender. Believe. There are so many angels everywhere willing to guide you forward. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice.
And do smile back at yourself in the mirror. Give yourself a well-deserved high-five and shout it to the rafters,
“WELCOME HOME!”
“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”
~ Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai)
. . . .
If you are going through a challenging loss right now, please feel free to write to me and if I may be able to help you see the light through the darkness I would be honored.
