We arrived on New Year’s Day in San Fransisco after traveling for over seven weeks. I was never so glad to see a shuttle and slept the whole way home after partying rather late into the wee hours on our last night in the UK, New Year’s Eve. All the poetry, songs and anthems for home ring completely true after being away for so long. Even though we had a brilliant, lovely trip in every way, there is nothing quite like coming home. It is not that home is perfect exactly. There are leaves that need to be blown, furniture that was moved in the storm and office flooding to be sorted and a refrigerator to be once again filled, yet it is HOME and sweetly perfect as is. I thought I would weep with joy when I laid in my bed for the first time in weeks. How could it feel this comfortable?? We have been gone just long enough to feel a sort of forgetting of where things are, what things sound like and what our “normal”procedures are. It is coming back like the riding of a bicycle comes back to you after not riding for years.
Our final hours in London…
I am looking forward to seeing my peeps, getting the newspaper started again, and going to the Crocker for my docent tours next week. I am struck by just how much life continues even when I am not here. We are blessed with a clutch of loved ones who tended the property even during trying circumstances (flooding rain, an elderly dog who can barely make it onto the porch to do her business and the ridiculous flow of mail and periodicals that incessantly arrives) to whom we are indebted. I am honestly glad to be home now to do this for myself. I love my home and all that it entails. Maintenance still amazes me and it was obvious just how much daily and weekly maintenance was done on our property by various people while we were gone. A house does not keep itself. I guess a house is a manifestation of industry and energy like the body is. Both must be maintained to be of any use to the inhabitants. I suppose it is a practice of being here now. Though my heart fell as seeing the yard still looking like a WWI battlefield complete with muddy trenches and holes filled with water, and the furniture crowded to one
A penny (& much love) for my thoughts
end of the office and all oriental rugs gone for post flood cleaning I still was so proud of the mammoth efforts of our daughter and our friends to keep things safe I could only feel gratitude.
In a matter of days our daily work will resume and another year will be properly kicked off with meetings, lists and a hundred phone calls. And I will be ready. Ready to greet my thoughts with love, ready to listen to my heart in whatever form it chooses to speak to me, and ready to en-joy the new born year. As a friend and reader put it: Happy Wholeness in the New Year!
