A shorter post on Christmas Eve, a time when many of us think of home and family. A big THANK YOU to my friends and family who are following this blog, providing feedback and encouragement – I wish you all some time for rest as well as fun over the holidays.
Since moving to the west coast, I developed a habitual pattern with air travel. During my departure, I went into a restive state which was, I guess, a form of decompression: not meditating, not sleeping, not bored. My return flights were devoted to enthusiastically writing to do lists and a new daily schedule after I’d had a chance to relax and reflect on What Is Important.
This fall, I travelled to Nova Scotia for Canadian Thanksgiving and that first flight from Seattle since the simpler living epiphany was very different: I read and slept. For my return flight, I also read and slept. I did not work on an ideal schedule since I’d already determined it* as part of the plan.
I had a truly hearty visit with family and friends and it reinforced my decision to move back there. But I don’t expect anything to be or feel the same. I moved away fourteen years ago: I will no longer be a visitor but I won’t be a local again either. I also haven’t idealized the place by forgetting how wretched the weather in winter (that generally runs well over into spring) can be. The plan does not preclude living simply in a warmer climate for a few months a year.
Mom asked me once if I ever got homesick. I honestly never felt that. I like to think it’s just because slowly over time I’ve come to feel that home is wherever this body is. If I’d moved back earlier, I would have felt it was because I was duty-bound or had failed at something. Not now.
But I’m not going back to the area that was my home – I’m returning to what was home for Mom. It is a place of natural beauty, energy, and magic for all who visit. A place where a wide view of the Atlantic Ocean can replace a flat-screen TV. In October, I walked down the road to the ocean and the tide was already there to meet me.
References
*See my No Time to Lose post.