Home (?)

"You can have more than one home. You can carry your roots with you, and decide where they grow." Henning Mankell

I recently took a trip back to Jacksonville, Florida for a family friend's wedding. It was an Italian wedding, and I loved it.

But at work all week before, when I told people that I was going home, I felt confused. I felt like a liar.

The truth is, I don't have much of a concept of home any more. Sure there are pithy sayings like 'home is where the heart is' or 'home is where you hang your hat.' Do we even need a home? And I don't mean a house. I'm not talking about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But where is home?

See...the honest truth is my actual birth home is gone. Demolished, wiped off the face of the earth, the property sold to the lowest (read: only) bidder. The lands I played on growing up are now someone's junk pile. My baseball field, just someone else's something. Or nothing. My basketball goal, torn down for another utility pole. Fields where I broke my arm, bled, cried, got spanked, kissed girls, still there but not mine. Pro tip: If you sell (long story) your ancestral lands, do not look at Google Street View. Ever.

Classically, I miss Jacksonville much more than I thought that I would. Because, you know, 'I'm so tough.'

"I'm leaving this place all behind."

"I'm going to make my new home out West."

"Go West Young Man™."

I went, and I'm not sure this is home. And I love it here.

Sad(!!!) but I'm not sure I'll ever find home again.

See, I live in two worlds. Two masters. I'm always running. Running from something. The reality is that I'm running from myself. 'Where to? Home?'

'Run along now, boy.'

What if there is no home to run to? Where do you go? I want to have it both ways. I want to be a vagabond, a gypsy, a free spirit, but I want to put down roots, craft a foundation, have something to call my own. It doesn't pencil...

My mother was a runner. Not marathons, but from men. She was married four or maybe five times. How many, it doesn't matter. Enough, suffice it to say...

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I enjoyed my time this past weekend. Jacksonville is just like everywhere else. Mostly beautiful, partly mundane, a little ugly. I felt a colossal sense of peace and got along with my in-laws about as well as I have in the twenty years that I have known them. I had an absolute blast as I said at the wedding.

But it didn't feel like home, and I don't know why.

But the truth, is I DO know why, and that's because it just isn't home.

Because of events that occurred that I won't go into here, my dreams of home were shattered. I had visions, dreams, and fanciful notions about going home someday. But those, like many of our dreams, visions, and illuminations were snuffed. And for what its worth, I'm partially (maybe mostly) to blame for this.

What was the point of this post?

Basically home is where you are. It's how you feel about something. I really don't think that home is a building. It's people. It's food. It's a feeling. It's got little to do with brick and mortar and a lot to do with thoughts and emotions.

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Now a lot of you are probably beginning to wonder how much this has to do with Arizona and day hiking and the truth is not a whole lot. But...I'm introspective and I'm hopeful that you'll appreciate my thoughts and value them as much as you do my hiking reports.

Let me know how you determine "home" as I'm fascinated by the concept.