Daily Blog #7: Homeward Bound
Where do you go once the Journey is done?

I was excited to listen to this new guided meditation that showed up in my inbox entitled: ‘I Am Adventurous’ — A perfect affirmation to explore! For I am forging new territories, having recently been emboldened to make big leaps in my works (including sharing my thoughts and words here every day). I couldn’t wait to hear this guide’s wise words of adventure… But within a minute of being centered in my body, of being encouraged to explore new paths, the idea of home was presented. For to aspire to grand adventures, you need to know where you want to come back to.
Ummm….
A flood of emotion hit my body. It was a complete surprise to feel. I tried to hone in on my life here in L.A., my family in Vancouver and Idaho. But nothing felt like a counterpoint to the quest. Nothing resonated as one place that I would want to return to after breaking ground on a new path. Wasn’t the path itself supposed to become my home? For I realized, I have only ever envisioned breaking new ground, expanding outwards. It hit ‘home’ that I didn’t have a really clear and stable image of what I was supposed to come back to.
Yikes.
For many of us here in Los Angeles, the idea of home is a complicated one. We are usually not ‘home’ here. We’ve been pulled by our dreams, pushed by our fears to arrive in this sun soaked city of stars. We create a life here, even find our partner, our spouse, but our roots are often elsewhere. We hold to on to our original ‘home’ because it’s comforting, supportive, ready to embrace us again like a patient parent, if the rush of L.A. and ‘the dream’ prove too much. Yet, mostly those people, the family you’ve left behind don’t quite understand ‘the dream’ that fuels you, so if you do return, you don’t feel able to share the journey that you’ve been on… the change that it has brought about. Only that you’ve failed. Which, at the end of the day, is a type of heroes journey. Except that you don’t feel like the hero. Which is why you left in the first place.
So where is home? What would be the elements that it has to have? I think along the lines of a warrior coming home from battle… what are the things that she would need, look forward to?
Love, support, understanding, guidance, rest, recovery, comfort, connection; a physical, emotional and spiritual touchstone that is a veritable recharging/reflection station (preferably with wine).
OK cool. As a performer, a story builder and creative constantly putting my work up for judgement, it would be a similar list. The first two — check — I am grateful in the abundance of love and support that surrounds me from my family and friends. But the third and forth… understanding and guidance? Not so much. We artists like to toil in solitude, bare the artist experiences like a cross. It’s easy to get lost in the narrative of ‘no one truly understands us.’ Perhaps, because we are still sorting it all out, a work in perpetual progress. And as we don’t bring home a warm animal carcas every night to feed the homefront, or a further sense of security in an increasingly insecure world, we don’t fully unload. We don’t strip off the armor of the day’s battles and ask for help to tend to our wounds. Perhaps we don’t feel worthy.
But if there is not a place where you can be your true self, your authentic, vulnerable self, where you can find comfort and recovery, you need to build one. I am realizing you can’t survive the adventures without one. For in the Latin word for home: Domus — there in the word is the root ‘dem’ — which means to build. It’s inherent in the word.
So, it is time for me to address my ‘heroes journey’ a little differently, and to take some responsibility to create and then embrace my home.
And perhaps its time to trust more in those around me, that they might ‘get’ me a little more than I give them credit for. Perhaps I shouldn’t always be on these solo adventures… I could actually include them in some. Perhaps I should trust in the homes that already exist, even if it didn’t initially resonate like Ithica did to Odysseus or Kansas to Dorothy.
I have a dream. It’s of a roaring fire in the wilderness, where a tribe surrounds it. They share their stories, their adventures. Each listening to the other, receiving, sharing, strengthening the whole. Nature as their home. Humanity as their call.
Coming home can be the true adventure.
