(We made it across the tightrope! It was better, and harder, than we expected... and I am finding it very difficult to write directly about what happened, so I'm coming at it sideways. I'm working my way through Making Manifest, a fantastic book about creativity and the Creator by Dave Harrity. This post is a response to one of the writing exercises in the book)
Home. This is a word that has very complex layers of meaning for me.
Due
to many reasons, I didn't often feel at home during my childhood. My
happy memories are of places within the houses I lived in, rather than
with the people I lived with.
Then I left my home, and
my family, and after a few months of wandering, my new church became my
home. I was there whenever it was open, and the people in it embraced
me - I had a new family.
My next home was my husband. I
had never known anyone to delight in me as he did, and together he and
God became my home. We multiplied ourselves four times, and our house
became much louder and busier. Time in the home of our own company
became very rare and treasured.
Now I live in a house
that is also my home, on land that feels like home, with my husband-home
and my family - it is all home! Whenever
we come back from a trip away my whole family wanders around our home, delighting that
we are back again. It's not a fancy house - it isn't even completely
finished, despite seven years of living in it - but it is home to all of
us.
And yet... I've just been home. Home to the
people who lived in my childhood houses. And despite almost two decades
of not seeing them, they are still home. They are familiar to me in a
way that no one else is - I see their childhood likenesses in their own
children, and I realise that I can see my parents in myself.
The
door that I pushed open to escape through, had been barred tightly
shut. They opened it for my family to come through for a few hours...
and then tried to slam it shut again, but I still had my foot in the
doorway. So they and we talked through the slender opening that was
left, we touched each others faces and tried to memorize each others
voices, because we knew it would be many years, if ever, before we saw
one another again.
And then the door was shut - gently, but very
firmly, leaving me and my little family on the outside.
We each cried, on our own sides of the wall that they are sure needs to
be there.
Now I am back in my home, with my husband and
children, but my heart is not quite all back here yet... I think some
part of it may be waiting still, by the wall. Waiting and hoping that
the door might open again, just a sliver.
