homecoming

It's been a long time coming, this process of coming home. I used to believe that "home" was a physical street address, a GPS coordinate. And yes, of course, it can be. But in this case, the GPS coordinates are at the center of my very own soul. 

Coming home to myself has taken time. Patience. Grit. Years and years of consistent, attentive inner work. It's taken a willingness to leave behind the perceived safety of "right and wrong" and wander without a compass in the dark. 

Brandi Carlile, in her song "Harder to Forgive" sings: 

Yes, my life has seen some wasted time

I have suffered for the peace inside my mind...

Me too. Me too. 

And yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that my current homecoming wouldn't be happening - at least not in the profoundly beautiful way it's now unfolding - without every single "wrong" turn, every time straying from the pack, every dark night of the soul. 

And so, as poet and playwright Derek Walcott wrote in the following poem, these days I am finally - gratefully - greeting myself, giving my heart to itself, and feasting on my life:

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.