| ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The word “Home” conjures up different things to different people, but for me, it became, over time, super-charged with a sense of longing but resignment, having been a multiple homeowner at one stage and walking away from it all to experience what inevitably became a determinedly nomadic existence. “Home” eventually became a distant thing that belonged to other people, something other folk enjoyed, an experience I once had but was maybe never going to happen again, like a trip to that diving island in Fiji I’d never go to again, even though I loved it, or that place in London I should have kept, but didn’t, and at times searching for where “Home” might be. I would throw darts against a map pinned on the wall, wondering if they’d stick onto someplace I never thought about and like magic “Home” would happen again. But it didn’t. My besties who have a place in Palm Desert (a place I felt calm and very creative in) wanted me to stick the dart there and, never really wholly engaging in the idea, eventually I agreed to meet their friend Betsy Justice and, after much discussion, we went on a journey together. A road trip really. I rode shotgun with her as she took me on adventures of the idea of “Home” and what it might look like in the many ways that others see as “Home” and many times I just knew there wasn’t enough gas in the world to get me there and just let her drive that car alongside a stubborn critter that just didn’t believe you could actually get anywhere anymore. And then at times I realized it was she who was sitting shotgun beside me and taking in the mysterious WTF of what even I didn’t know what it was I was looking for. And eventually it shapeshifted into understanding. And here’s the thing: The world is populated with people who call themselves “Real Estate Agents” and that’s just fine. It’s also populated, though in a lesser degree, with people who ride shotgun with your dreams, even though you don’t even think your dream lives out there in the world anymore, and that simple strong powerful energy of someone just wanting you to find the thing you want, or don’t even know you want, but riding shotgun with you in an adventure to find the place – The Place – that make your heart sing, that makes you feel safe, that makes you feel the world is actually alright – is rare and extremely special. I’m a Home Owner now. Not a Property Owner. Not a House Owner. I got “Home”. I have keys in my hand. They’re mine. Thank you Betsy Justice, for riding shotgun with me or me riding with you, who gives a crap. We got me there. We got me Home. |