No place like home

I feel inspired to write about ‘home’ today. I've recently returned to Canada from a much needed six months living in solitude on an acreage in Washington State where I re-discovered my inner artist. Thanks to my Earth Angel Bobbie who synchronistically re-entered my life after thirty years and happened to need a ‘house sitter’ for the winter. We called the town of Cobalt in Northern Ontario 'home' as young girls.

This past spring weekend, I found myself visiting Jasper Park in beautiful sunny Alberta, surrounded by the snow covered Rocky Mountains, turquoise green water, and local wildlife (I am referring to ACTUAL animals here not people ;-)). I was reunited with some of the most REAL people who call the town of Norman Wells 'home'. Some of us go back thirty years, some only twenty, and I see so very clearly now, what a beautiful and rare gift this is. I used to assume everyone had this kind of connection to community and I took it for granted. Living in a small town most of one’s life, especially an isolated one in the Arctic, you create a common bond with people and these bonds feel like ‘home’ to me now more than ever. Most people think of ‘home’ as a house or apartment, but I no longer do. Home is in my heart.

I’ve been gypsy’ing around place to place for over three years now. I left the life I knew in Canada's Arctic, one of familiarity, security and all things material, in order to ‘find myself’ (for lack of better words) and my soul's calling. Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I’ve been following the yellow brick road (signs and synchronicities) that Creator has laid out for me as I have learned from experience (not from a book, or a workshop, or a psychic) that when I am at home within myself, then I am at home wherever I happen to be. It hasn’t been this way my whole life and certainly wasn’t this way as I started out on my soul searching adventure, however I have finally come to a place where I can feel at home pretty much anywhere/anytime. I can be at home by myself or when I’m in a crowd, on a plane or a bus, in the wilderness or in the city, or when I have twenty dollars to my name or two thousand (although it's been many moons since I've actually had that many dollars all at the same time!! That's a whole different blog topic - one I'll call 'Money Doesn't Buy Happiness!!).

This lifestyle I have chosen the past few years, has found me experiencing with many different people and families, and living and sleeping in some pretty crazy places.…on floors, on the ground, in people’s spare rooms, in tents, in divey hotels and in luxury accommodations. I have experienced firsthand ‘no matter where you go, there you are’ as I’d noticed myself experiencing happiness in some of the most humble living conditions, and experiencing deep inner struggle and depression in some of the most beautiful locations on this Earth. Having lived and observed that part of my journey, showed me that if I wanted to find my true self, I needed to find it within. Leaving my comfort zone where everyone knew my name and who I was and what I did, to go out into the world where no one knew my name or who I was or what I did was the most vulnerable I’d ever allowed myself to be, but it was the way for me to find my way back to myself. It was definitely worth it, especially now that I can look back from this point in my journey having found myself. I’m truly ‘home’.

This past weekend, it was like I could see how so much came together, as some of my NWT homeys Barb-napped me from Edmonton to go on a road trip to Jasper, Alberta where some people from my hometown in the North, were gathering for a wedding. We are a community of people who call the same territory and town, ‘home’. We are like a very large family. We don’t always get along with each other but we look after each other as a community when the chips are down. Some of us have thrown dirt at others. Some of us have been hit with that dirt, and we all are quite aware of each other’s dirt. I think that dirt is what keeps us ‘real’. While I purposely left my physical 'home', having set out to find my inner 'home', I do know where I come from and I am proud to call Cobalt and Norman Wells, 'home'.

It’s interesting what they say about hindsight and it being 20/20. Time is the one thing that has to pass in order to have it. Some people aren’t fond of the years passing and the numbers that define our age climbing higher, but one of the gifts we are granted in that process, is hindsight. Thirty years have now passed since this young naïve teenager left the small town of Cobalt in Northern Ontario and move to Norman Wells, Northwest Territories, and I finally have 20/20 hindsight! Re-connecting with old familiar faces, laughing and sharing old stories, seeing the kids and how they've grown, I realized how truly connected we all are and will remain to be no matter where we are physically in the world. That's some amazing wind under one's wings!

I can see how my life has come full circle from the day I left the NWT to go on a walk about. Not only did I experience hindsight this past weekend, I ‘felt’ it. It felt like ‘home’, and everybody knows there’s no place like HOME.