:: narrative ::

Themes of Home

My son and I traveled 1600 miles to visit my brother and his family last week. We had a great time, seeing new places, visiting with family, going to special events, and just being together. I was very aware of all the feelings churning around inside the "leaving home" experience--all the newness, discomfort, worry (will we make the flight? Will security be scary? Will we be reunited with our luggage?), schedule changes, and more. Everything new required flexibility, adaptability, and trust.

It's interesting to me that in order to step into a new experience we must be willing to step outside the known, the comfortable, the familiar. Each has its gift. It is a real leaving and a real stepping out. And at the close of the experience, there is a real leaving of the new and a modified, enriched return to the old. We carry within us some kind of expansion, more openness, more welcome, that occurred as we grew into the new experience.

I think each time we have a deep conversation with someone, each time we encounter another person truly, each time we open ourselves to a new idea, each time we try to approach something that scares us or heal something that has limited us, we go through this leaving and arriving process. The good news is that we don't lose what we leave because it has expanded us and moved in, becoming part of who we are. I think we do ultimately relax our grasp of it, dissolving the belief that we have to have it in our hands in order continue safely through our lives. More has come. More will come. And wherever we are in our travels, all is well.

posted by Katherine Murray @ 7:58 PM