"How can you leave your house for two years?", people ask incredulously, when they learn that I'm about to depart for Jamaica? I slowly smile and explain that I've been fortunate to reside in my current home for the past 27 years. I"m simply choosing to veer off in a new direction temporarily. I want to sample a simpler life with minimal possessions. I want to give back to people who have been less fortunate. I know that I have an obligation and the desire to compose my own life. I am driven to pursue a sense of purpose, as well as new channels for personal growth.
When my daughter moved to Oregon after college, she expressed feelings of homesickness in her new environs. I e-mailed her a passage that I'd read in an issue of Oprah's magazine. Oprah had shared a new, personal insight concerning her concept of home: she had suddenly realized that feeling at home was not about the house, but rather about her sense of being within its confines. So, in essence, your sense of home stems from wherever you are at the moment.
My own perceptions about my home are mirrored in a quote by Mark Twain.
" Our house had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see with; and approvals, and solicitude's, and deep sympathies: it was of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its own benediction..... We could not enter it unmoved."
My house has gently morphed into a graceful extension of myself and my family over the years. It's changed size, dimensions and personality during the various financial seasons of my life. Since I'm a person with an innate need for creative self-expression, I'd sooner go without food than pass up a nifty old piece of furniture, an art print, the opportunity to stencil a wall. I once lived in my new house for months with gray, unpainted sheet rock walls. I couldn't quite bring myself to starve my 15 month old daughter. Let's see, buy food or buy paint. You guessed it, food won that ethical dilemma.
More importantly, it was within the confines of my cozy, post and beam house that I learned how to be a wife and mother, to fine tune my priorities, to reset my values and to tackle new skills and projects. It has witnessed my personal triumphs and losses. My home has held me and nurtured me during times of ever fluctuating emotions: from intense anger, disappointment, and sadness to supreme moments of elation, joy and happiness.
Will I miss my home while I'm away for two years? Yup, I definitely will. The heart and the soul of a home is about the people who reside there and who enter it. I'm taking along my sense of self, so wherever I reside will feel like home, to some extent.
As soon as time allows, I'll open the front door of my new abode with a warm smile and welcome in the new people in my life. Then, and only then will it feel like home. I'll make new memories. I'll learn how to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I'll develop new skills and how to live in a different culture with their own set of values.
Yes, I'm certain that household memories from my past will hitchhike along and help to sustain me in my new home and country. And besides I know that friends and family will be there in spirit. That's all I need.
