Home again?

As many of you may know, I have taken a short break from the South Pacific, and am paying a 2 month visit back here in the land of Ohio. It's been wonderful to get caught up with the people and culture that I have been removed from for the greater part of a year, now. Just last night, I took the time to drive up to Mount Vernon for the evening, were I met up with some of my closest friends. This is not just the group of friends that you, "do stuff" with. These are not the kind of friends that need an agenda or plan, these are the friends with whom you simply "dwell", the kind of friends that you can spend hours with, laughing and telling stories, and joking and remembering the times that you have had together, and somewhere in the midst of everything you realize that, you haven't actually done anything. It was somewhere in the midst of this evening, after the food had been cooked, and the desserts had been eaten, and the campfire had been kindled and the sun had been set that I found myself in one of those moments where you step outside of yourself, and simply watch. It was as if I was so holistically content with entirety of the experience that I wanted to just step back and watch it all happen. It was the same feeling as looking back at an old photo album and remembering a world of warmth and familiarity, and staring at the photos, dwelling on the experiences and memories that they bring back. This was precisely the same experience. I just sat there watching the orange glow of the campfire make the shadows dance across the faces of the people gathered around it. I sat and took in the sounds of the famliar voices, caught up in their dramatic story telling, loud outbursts and boisterous laughter that for anyone else should have been completely disturbing, but for me, it was a chorus that made me feel like everything was just right. I was home, but this home was in no way tied to a place or a particualr building. There were no trinkets or fresh-baked things required to bring me home. Home, for me, is with people. This was a beautiful reassurance for me, because I knew that as beautiful as this "home" was for me. I knew that this home was really big. There were pieces of this "home" here in Ohio, scattered about northern Romania, speckled throughout parts of Korea, and most recently, this "Home" has taken a new and fruitful growth on a little Island Archipelago in the South Pacific, and it was in the reassurance of this "Home" that I could take that little walk outside of myself, and dwell in the beautiful sounds and images of that moment, but rest warmly in the knowledge that there is nowhere where "home" cannot be.

E9E7D394-E6F2-1B1B-759E-15D5B704ACED

1.02.28