Where's Home? Category 4: We carry it with us like a turtle

In this, the final offering of submissions for the 'Where's Home' exercise, we explore carrying home with us as if we were a turtle or snail.   We hope you enjoy submissions from Terri Good,  Ella Moss,  Karen Cox,  Rita Clagett and Mo Scott.  Thanks to each of you for these nutrient-rich entries!

Winners for this category: 'we carry home with us like a turtle'...are Terri Good and Rita Clagett.   They will receive heirloom wildflower seeds for the area they call home. 

A big bow the bloggers and sites that have and are promoting the 'Where's Home?' exercise: Patti Digh, Dave Pollard, Julia Harris, Carl McColman, Carl McColman, Karen Crone, Gayle Roberts, Ella Moss  and any others who posted a link or article to their blogs to help promote this exercise.

Later this week, the 5th and final post will be a compilation of the winning entries from all 4 categories.  We want y'all to let us know which ones spoke to you and made your heart sing!

Here's the final entries...but not the last words on this subject, as you might suspect!

flickr photo: The Turtle by linda yvonne

Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: Terri Good lives in Buffalo, New York but has lived in other places around the world.

Home is where I am at, in this moment in time.

It can be a peaceful, quiet, and contemplative.

It can be stressful, crazy, and with too much to do in this consumer world of do, do, do. 

Home is where I am at, because I have learned that there is good and beauty in every place. 

I only have to remind myself that home is where I make it, to give thanks for what I have, that I am blessed for all that surrounds me. 

No matter where I am, no matter the time or circumstances. 

Home is where I make it. 

 
flikr photo: Aegina Greece by AdamosMaximus

Ella Moss lives in New York City

Home, of course, is where we belong. Home is something that gives us that indelible feeling of comfort and ease.
Is it a place?  Not necessarily. A place, no matter how beautiful or familiar, can still leave us feeling lonely, if it is empty, or make us uncomfortable, if populated with disagreeable people.

So home is, probably, people that we feel we belong with. These are the people with whom we can disrobe our soul and not feel naked. These are the people who know us through and through and still love us, and we repay them with the same.

Or, maybe, home is that special soul in our lives, whose presence engulfs us with comfort and warmth. If we are lucky to know such person, we would feel at home whenever and wherever we can hold his or her hand, be quiet together or laugh together at whatever silly comes to mind.

I left my country long time ago. Then, 11 years later, a month after the honeymoon with my first husband, I went back for a visit. It took 3 days for me to re-orient myself. I actually went right past the house I grew up in. It was my uncle who stopped me, and took me up to the communal flat on the fifth floor, which used to be my home. An old lady opened the door. "Oh, my! Ella!” she exclaimed, embracing me. It took a while for me to surmise that she was the mother of two kids who were my childhood playmates. She has not seen me since I was 10 years old and managed to recognize me 20 years later!

As she was chatting, filling me in on what happened since I moved away, I was finally slipping into the Familiar we call "Home". From that moment on, I was to enjoy my Motherland for the next month. I was so happy there, my new husband got afraid that I might not come back! And it's true, if I was not happily married then, I might have chosen to stay.

But, at the end, it was he, who was my home then. So I flew back into my husband's arms.

I never went back to Russia since. My family and friends all moved away. So coming back would be staring at houses filled with my memories but inhabited by complete strangers. So it is no longer my home.

Now I live in a beautiful apartment in New York. But as much as I like it, I can easily envision some other place I could live in.

In fact, just recently, I went back to the yoga retreat in the Bahamas, which I have not visited for more than 5 years, took a dip in the ocean, and exhaled as if I finally went home... It felt so good, so familiar, as if that water was where I truly belonged! Or was it That Beach? Or was it the Yoga Retreat behind me?  I do enjoy that place immensely, coming back every now and then when my batteries need recharging. But living there all the time? I don't think so. They don't allow coffee there.

I know I cannot envision anyplace I would be living at without my son. He is my home now.  But, one day, he will move away... Would I become homeless then?   Of course, not!

I carry my Home, wherever I am, like a snail! Or, rather, He carries me in His arms as I move through my days. I feel His Presence always. I talk to Him whenever I want.  And, when I quiet my thoughts, I hear His Silence, and we both smile with joy. He talks to me all the time too. He talks through other people, signs, feelings, dreams, "coincidences", and, sometimes, even whispers words in my ear. He touches me with sunshine or rain, plays with my hair on windy days, and always leaves me little presents wherever I look: my orchid's blooms, a passerby's smile, a rainbow in the sky... When I am down, he makes me laugh, whether by sending a clown into the train car I am riding in, or by giving something silly to me to read, or by sending a friend my way. When I am scared, he always finds a way to remind me that every fear is "a monster under the bed".  He is my True Home, because he knows me better than anyone, and still loves me more than anyone; because, as people and places change in my life, He is always here, the Nearest and the Dearest.

flickr photo: 'Look at me' by marikp1018

Karen Cox lives in Bend, Oregon

I love being  asked the question, "Where's home?" because I love reflecting on the answers that come up for me.

I am pleased to find that the first idea of home that came for me was a place I carry within me. That place feels like being comfortable in my own skin and "being comfortable where ever I am".  Knowing that I belong wherever I wish to be.  It feels like a safe place where all I need to do is to show up, engage and be present, and tell my truth.  Then I began to wonder where within me do I carry home?  It feels like a Spirit place that is heart centered where I feel most vulnerable and most empowered.  That paradoxical description, for me, is a very healthy perspective on how I most desire to live my life.  I have come to be home on my journey to more wholeness through some devastating losses, reality checks, grief work, healing of the wound ...with a constant grace and joy that I still want to be here...at Home...within this body, this mind, this psycho-spiritual sphere with others on the planet. 

So at least part of where is home is:  right here, right now, inside of me.

There are many other parts of home...walking my dog in the forest feels like home.  Being in nature, around water and trees and wildflowers and wildlife. In the snow and sun, feels like a big piece of centering home to me.  I can leave any worries totally behind to enjoy the smells, sights and sounds of nature.  Riding my bike, skiing, swimming at my favorite lake all feel like home to me.  When I camp out and sit around the fire, I feel I am home and that all is right with my world.

Being connected to others feels like home.  My mother, my children, my grandchildren...we all have a bond that is loving and strong and I can drop into my authentic self and be at home. My extended family of cousins, dwindling aunties and uncles that have loved me since my birth...they all create home for me.  My German Shepherd Kai is my constant companion has created more of a physical home for me.  She is always ready to joyfully greet me when I return home.  Always more than ready to go where I go...happily. 

I include a few especially close friends that I can share my life and theirs at very deep levels creates peaceful haven for me.  Those constant friends that I can call and say "help!" and they are ready to drop into wherever I need to go...That connection with others extends to my church community, my new friends at Fire Circle that are incredibly honest about how life is for them has created a safe home.  My ever evolving, widening circle of friends that share from their hearts, that can tell me of their questions and answers and not-knowing form a safe place for me "to be". The Yoga family that meets weekly in my home to bless the space. My hiking group that hikes year round and has for ten years, have become home for me as a place I can ask sometimes practical questions and receive a plethora of possible answers.  This group also shares their joys and sorrows and likes to celebrate together.

Last of all, is my physical home:  My house...  My home, for me, is a safe place:  although I live alone I am never frightened.  My home feels like a sanctuary...a place that reflects who I am spiritually with many small altars sprinkled around.  I have had a desire to have it feel cozy for me and also inviting others in.  This is a place of ease and rest for me.  When I need that alone quiet time, it is there for me.  The colors and things there reflect what I am passionate about...reminders from places I have been and things dear to me.  I also feel a responsibility to maintain the home and yard so that it continues to support me in the physical ways I desire.  My garden work is like therapy for my soul and I work to maintain a comfortable place that I can sit out and see the night sky as well as the garden that surrounds me.

What a blessing to discover all the things that HOME conjures up for me.  It helps me to understand and feel gratitude for all the different venues that support me in my journey and feel like a safe place: home.

 
[Note: This is Beth's beloved shepherd, Jaz 
near Moab, Utah a few weeks before her death in 2004.]

Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: Rita Clagett lives off the grid near Crawford, Colorado.  Rita is a guest blogger on the Virtual Tea House.

   
   House-made-home

[Editorial note: Although this piece seems to be about the amazing space that Rita has attached to in western Colorado, it's really more about what the land, animals and plants have done to her...so I put it in the category of 'carrying it with us like a turtle.]

Something is happening to me. After living in the boonies for fifteen years I’m changing. The other day I pulled up to the county road at the top of my driveway and an SUV stopped in the curve of the dirt road, a man jumped out and came toward my car. Years ago I’d have been nervous, irritated that he’d stopped in a blind curve, fearful he meant harm. Instead I smiled and waved, and he asked if this was the way to the National Park. 

 
How many cats can you get on one windowsill?

Yesterday I found myself at the Book Brigade, standing in a line with 54 other people in the hot sun of the first day of summer, slinging boxes of books down the line from the door of the old library across the parking lot to the door of the new library. On one side of me were two ebullient Evangelical ladies, one waving her arms over her head crying “Let the angels be with them, let the angels be with them, by Jesus’ will!” after the other had told us her children were driving through a tornado zone. On the other side of me was a sullen teenage boy whose feet seemed glued to the gravel, forcing me and the Republican woman on the other side of him to each take a few steps to pass the boxes. “Take a step!” I finally sang to him as the rest of us swung with the music. He did, he smiled. I had a terrific time.

 
Catahoola Leopard hounds peering into the canyon on my property

A few months ago I was out of town, where home used to be, where I grew up, and I needed to get some money to my friend Suzi to pay my bills. It couldn’t have been simpler. I called the bank, asked the teller to transfer money from my account to Suzi’s, and it was done. No security checks, no passwords, I didn’t even know Suzi’s account number, just gave her name. “Sure, Rita,” said the teller, “no problem.” This week I needed to drive to the city for an unexpected doctor visit, which I mentioned to a friend across the valley who’d happened to call. I hadn’t seen her in years, and she volunteered to ride along.

A juniper snag version of a hot tin roof

Though grasshoppers have once again decimated my vegetable crop, the flowers bloom profusely in the garden, and tiger swallowtails flit through the blooms and scents with a variety of bees. I have spent months pulling weeds. Friends come over each week bearing food and enjoy the house and yard I have built from clay and seeds. All these are reasons that living here has come to be comfortable, to be home.

More reasons, and deeper, lie in the forest where I built my house. This morning I wore my reading glasses on top of my head to walk the dogs, so that when I passed the hummingbird nest I could peer inside and see the babies as more than the pea-sized blobs they were the other day when they hatched. A couple of weeks ago I paused in my walk to sit in one of the lawn chairs I scattered through the woods years ago, and as I sat I became aware of a hummingbird zipping nervously about in the tree across the path from me. With that dawning awareness that imparts certainty I knew she had a nest nearby; I slowly turned my head, and right there, a foot from my face, was her little plastered nest suspended from a limb. For days I saw eggs when I peeked in in passing, then finally tiny balls of life. This morning, little, I mean little, gaping mouths, silently squawking for food.

The day before that, the dogs spooked a nighthawk off the ground under a juniper near the far turn in our morning loop. Something about the way it flew, almost upright at first, caused me to investigate, and there, not in a nest or even a depression, but right out on the forest floor, lay two speckled eggs the size of my thumb’s first joint. Rounding the loop at the canyon rim, I paused to offer thanks at the Ancient One, a thousand-year-old juniper that has stood watch over the place I call home for a hundred human generations. Thanks for the sighting of new, wild life, thanks for my health, thanks for my friends, thanks for the fertile, friendly ground of my community in which I have planted my roots and at last begun to bloom; thanks for my home.

  
West Elk Mountains at sunrise. Same mountains during early autumn. Looking down at Needle Rock.

Mo Scott is a native of Bend, Oregon

When I was little home was a house on the Westside where my family lived. A place of gathering and celebration. The place my older siblings who'd moved out, called home. This place was home for a long time even after I left home myself and had my own house.

Then as my children were little, home became the place we played and slept and laughed. The house we lived in together. It was in the feelings of being together, the warmth and oneness of love in my new family, my new home.
As I grew up in my adult life, home became a myriad of places. New places I'd visit. New places that held and welcomed me. I found home in ocean sides, tropical beaches, dark lush forests, desert rock outcroppings and the cozy beds of friends where we'd talk until sleep. Home seemed to be many places, with many people, a feeling of welcome and belonging.

Now home isn't really a place and it really isn't particular people. Home is a deep knowing. It is a knowing that anywhere I go I have within me the ability to be home. (Home in my own shoes.)  That all I need to know of love and safety and welcome is inside of me, and when I recognize this in the place I am and in the people I am with, I can settle down anywhere and know I am home. Home is where I find love and acceptance, comfort and care. Home is every where I go and no where in particular.

 
Water gushing out of the hillside from an underground river to help form the Metolius River, Central Oregon