The Return Home

The return home from a weekend away, a long journey or any extended stay somewhere else is in itself an enlightening experience. There is the anticipation, the buildup of emotion before you pull up and view the place you live from the street. It starts days before you depart your vacation spot to venture back to your routine existence. You wonder, “What will it feel like to get home?” I have found this question to be answered with varied responses each time I go somewhere often depending on where I live, what things were like when I left, and what I have to do when I get back to my real life.

I grew up in Michigan and remember most of my travels once I was in my teens to involve flying. I spent summers in Connecticut and school breaks in Florida. These states offered an escape from my immediate family to experience extended family and friends in a drastically different environment. I would return to Detroit Metro Airport from the sky, peering out my window at the grey, smoggy blanket over the city and think, “Why would someone want to live HERE?” Through my eyes I saw a concrete mess of dirty houses, smokestacks, depressing city scenes surrounded by flat farmland and strip malls. I couldn’t wait for an opportunity to leave the ugly suburbs for a life I imagined somewhere else near mountains or oceans, anything more exciting than concrete and cars. Yet, I continued to live in Michigan through college, and some years of work grounded by relationships of love that overpowered my desire to leave. “Some day, I thought, someday I will go.”

“Someday” came after I married Rod and we jam-packed our apartment and two dogs into a Volkswagen Jetta and moving truck to head to Utah for his graduate school opportunity. I’ll never forget entering Salt Lake City through the mountain pass and viewing the peek-a-boo scene of the valley as we traveled through the curvy highway to the valley floor. “This is home,” I thought to myself even though there was no one there I knew and no place for us to live. Fortunately, Rod felt the same way. We adventured locally while living in Salt Lake and Park City, there was so much to see and do in the mountains, every weekend provided a getaway. But when we did fly somewhere for a wedding, reunion, or funeral we couldn’t wait to get home. We were comfortable there and enjoyed our environment as well as the log home we eventually built in the mountains. I worked, he studied and we met at home where we truly felt like we escaped the chaos of Salt Lake City.

It took me a long time to acclimate to Oregon when we moved in 1996. I loved the high desert--the sun, the endless recreation, and everything about the puffy snow, except shoveling it, of course. When I went driving looking for a place for us to settle in this state I was se

arching for small town living and found it one day on a rainy afternoon drive in the spring through the Willamette Valley with a sleeping three-year old and ten month old baby in the car. Hunter and Phoebe would grow to know Silverton as their home while the neighborhood would watch our young family mature through life’s adventures. We drove to Mexico twice in our camper van, traveled to visit family in the midwest, drove to our favorite hideaways in British Columbia, and took multiple weekend and extended summer trips on our boat, Terrapin. Each time returning to the house we all loved with that feeling of relief once we rounded the corner on Welch St. and saw the greenish Victorian farmhouse standing right where we left it waiting patiently for its busy residents to occupy its rooms once more. So much of our young married life was enjoyed with holiday celebrations, birthday parties, halloween get-togethers in this century old landmark which I am sure my kids will remember as “the house they grew up in” . It was undoubtedly difficult to sell it when we left for an extended sailing trip in 2005 but we were moving on to Terrapin, to be our home for a year of life away from the familiar.

Surprisingly, the boat proved to be just as cozy and comforting, in some ways more so, than a house of many rooms. Each stroll down the dock to return to her Terrapin, whether in La Paz, Mexico, or in Molokai, Hawaii, brought the same feeling of “I’m home” that we had experienced on land. Our feet might be tired from walking to the store, or we’d be wet from a dingy ride back to the anchorage where she sat but once we climbed aboard, fired up the stereo with our favorite songs and relaxed in Terrapin’s wooden belly we felt very much at home. Her dark-green hull rests beautifully in the water and we were so proud to be the ones to claim her our own that we repeatedly invited others over to share our space. We had become confident in her ability to care for us in long ocean crossings, and that had made her, well, part of the family.

Now we are at rest in Mt. Angel and our family just returned from Spring Break 2010. We spent the week at Black Butte Ranch in the high-desert mountains of the Cascades in Oregon. It was a relaxing retreat for all of us including golf, swimming, snowboarding and quality time together in sun and snow. And as the week came to close I started thinking about our return. What emotion would be stirred up as I approached our tiny town? How would I feel when opening the front door? We arrived Sunday in the midst of pouring down rain. And while I was excited at thought of climbing into my own bed and relishing a good nights sleep, there was a hint of sadness when I turned knob and walked in the back door. "Goodbye," I thought as everyone retreated to their rooms exhausted, "see you next time."

Being home here with two teenagers means life away from each other because of busy schedules. When our family is apart naturally I worry about the well-being of my kids and as we all grow older I realize our time together as a family is limited. Happy memories in this house are mixed with tumultuous teenage crisis and mid-life dramas that continue to invade these walls. While our home is quiet, spacious, and charming it means less when the people who I care about aren’t here. So really, what I anticipated as I pulled into the driveway was the future in this house and that provided some thoughtful insight to the present. It’s interesting how perspective on the past or foresight into what lies ahead is often more pleasant and enchanting than the reality of today.

Two of my very close friends, whom I consider family, spent their spring break exploring new territory to settle with their families in states far from the Willamette Valley. They have the itch to move on to another place as they write the next chapters of their life. I wholeheartedly understand their need to start a new adventure and we will dearly miss them when they leave. Our house will be less of a home without their faces here to help fill our photo albums and memory banks. Thank you for sharing your life with ours for the last few years. This Irish blessing my Dad often quoted seems so appropriate here,

"May the road rise to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

May the rains fall soft upon your fields,

And, until we meet again,

May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.”--Anonymous