Unmoored

When I was seventeen, I couldn’t wait to leave my hometown. As a November baby, I was in luck – beer, boys, and yes some studying took me to a college just far enough away when I was still quite young. Brief visits home only confirmed my heart’s desire not to be there. It wasn’t so much my family that I wanted to get away from as it was the town. I often referred to it as the place you drove through to get somewhere else. And, there was the fact that we were non-affluents living in affluent suburbia at its best. It just wasn’t quite the right fit.

Suburbia not suiting me, I returned to the area after college to try my hand at living in the city of Buffalo for a few years. Not owning a vehicle until I was close to thirty, I flew around the city on my mountain bike, belting “Moon River” at the top of my lungs and always, always making it to the bar before day’s end. It was a time of short-lived jobs, punky boyfriends, and the absolute confusion that only the unsettled restlessness of early adulthood can bring about. And, it was very, very windy. My egocentrism was so tethered to taking things personally that the wind itself seemed to be out to get ME. Once again, I moved on. This time to a colder, albeit less windy part of New York State.

Fast forward a few decades to earlier this month and we find me a good 1,200 miles from New York State, sleeping (and sweltering) in Cracker Barrel parking lots on the gulf coast of Florida, and, for the first time since my travels began– beginning to feel a bit unmoored. Now, having made the ultimate leap to avoid all things unpleasant by selling my home and living life in my tiny RAV4 Ramper, I had made it possible for me to run away anytime to any place. Except, well, who was this I that was running and just where the hell did it think it was going?

Before I had set out on this grand adventure, I asked my adult daughter many times if she was Okay with me selling her childhood home and leaving to travel. Her generosity and love came out in this simple (and final) statement – “sigh…not to be cringe, mom, but home is you.” True enough. When I expressed my feelings of homesickness to her from a parking lot in Hillsborough County, Florida, we both felt the pull of home and I returned to stay with her for a while. Where was that you might ask? Oh, about 20 minutes from my hometown. And, the dance studio she is opening this summer? Yeah – on the street where I grew up.

Turns out if you can’t go home again, your children might do it for you.

One of my aspirations is to truly understand what impermanence means, both intellectually and experientially. This being so, I have set my intentions to not plan ahead and don’t book campgrounds or make firm plans more than a few days beforehand if possible. My visit with my daughter was open-ended – however, as with most hip-pocket mother/daughter relationships, we do need to separate in order to keep close. When it came time to leave this past week, my only plan was to come back to the meditation center I had been attending for the past couple of years for a weekend class. I had investigated places to stay around New York State, but hadn’t settled on anything. After some time, letting the idea sit and gel, I risked my nerves and asked.

Where am I now and hope to remain for the summer, you may wonder? Oh, at the dharma center about 40 minutes from the house I just sold.

Before leaving last December, my dearest spiritual friend and guide here at the center met with me and relayed the following analogy, which here I will fumble to paraphrase. What I had done by selling my home etc, was like jumping out of an airplane with no parachute. One’s instinct is to be frightened of crashing into the ground. But, when we can let go of the fear, we realize – there is indeed no ground. And, I will add, we may begin to see there is no fear either. My plan of no planning has been like drifting down through space and searching for the ground to meet me, of reaching around me to search for the parachute cord that just isn’t there. I have become habituated to landing…and to finding home.

Now, I have let go a little and I find myself once again on this familiar and beautiful land in a place of vast and profound serenity and love and know that this is perhaps the ultimate homecoming. With no expectation, yet with devotion and gratitude, I wish to stay here awhile. But, as my daughter said – home is not a place.

I am coming to understand that home is where my precious teacher is and ultimately it doesn’t matter where or when I am…I will always be at home.