Friday, July 8, 2011

Home Is ...

I get restless from time to time.  Feeling like I need to DO something ... not the little things ... like cleaning the house ... shopping ... taking up a new hobby ....

but the DO that means looking at real estate property and travel trailers .....

When I add up all the places I've lived, up to this point in my life, the number is almost as high as my age.

Okay, so my Dad was in the military ... as was my ex-husband ... and that might account for some of this restlessness.

But, I seriously think I have a good bit of gypsy in this Irish blood.

In spite of my restlessness, I am able to make myself at home wherever I end up living ...

whether it be an entire summer spent in an authentic Sioux teepee with five other girls ... in Alaska,

or, sleeping on the floor of an unfinished dorm (no windows or doors) high up in the Jamaican mountains ...

where you have to walk a mile to a spigot to get running water to wash your clothes and then carry them back again, so you can hang them out to dry .....

or, a tent with a four year old and an eight year old who wants to adopt a little abandoned field mouse, still blind from recent birth ...

which squeaks all night long in her little bucket .... the mouse definitely was not at home.

Then there was the time when we sold everything and moved from WV to VA ....

cramming all of us into a 400 square foot, one bedroom condo for six weeks ...

Now ... three moves later ... it seems I have finally grown roots ...

I can hardly believe we have lived in our current house for six years!

Our garden gets bigger every year ... so I must have really made myself at home ...

and yet ... underneath all the contentment of daily living in our present location,

there is still a restlessness ....

Maybe the restlessness I feel isn't from the way I was raised, or past experiences, or gypsy blood ...

maybe it's because I know that my Father calls us "temporary residents" ... "aliens" ...

maybe that's where the restlessness really comes from ....

my home is .... being prepared for me ....

bet I won't get restless there.