Listen to this post:
I have a loveseat that faces my stereo set with its turntable and CD deck, in front of the windows that face the road and the highway up the hill. In the predawn darkness, the traffic from here to there and back is a series of white and red and yellow lights racing north and south. Everyone outside the window is on a mission to get somewhere.
They will probably reach their destinations, but there are no guarantees. The lack of a guarantee is motivation enough to push on toward the destination through any storm and any reluctance or resistance.
Here behind the glass, I set my imagination free.
I see a fairy tale setting, a house in the woods that could be built of gingerbread, or is it a rainy city alley with a rodent in my face — and why am I close enough to the ground that I am face-to-face with a rat? — or am I flying over the clouds (must be a storm down there), on my way to the next adventure, or do I fly so often that I don’t even bother to look out the window while I bathe in resentment that I am not somewhere else, anywhere except this steel, coffin-like tube?
Is that a common theme rolling across the fruited plain — disappointment that we are not somewhere else or someone else? In wishing for another place or another identity, do we miss the magic in the here and now?
I write with a grateful heart with my right hand while a golden retriever licks my left hand and settles in beside me. I contemplate the restlessness in the land while rubbing a gentle dog’s shoulders. Why would I want to be somewhere else or someone else?
And there, perhaps, is the root of the restlessness: We want to be home, not flitting about from destination to destination. In the midst of every wild adventure is a yearning to be home with a golden retriever’s nose on our knee.
That’s why there are so many songs about going home and hymns about coming home after our trials are done. Home is shelter where our loved ones wait. We want to see the world and have adventures, but then we want to come home or find a home. The search for home — the instinct to make a home — is a powerful one.
