Home

I'm wondering what really is home.  Is it where I live? Is it where I grew up? I just returned from a week at my folks.  I remember moving there when I was 10.  Eight years later I headed off to college only to spend one or two subsequent summers there.  Is it home?

I write this sitting in the comfort of my living room.  Teddy on the floor to my right, the Christmas tree lit in front of the window.  Soon I will light the fire, and a few candles.  Tomorrow dinner company. 

One can have more than one home.  My heart is here in Rochester, yet at times I yearn to return home to other places where my heart has been ...  Chico, Oakland, Holden.  

I think that home is not a place.  Home is where I encounter others with an open heart.  It is walking the trails, coffee at 4224 Pasadena, folding laundry in thirds, serving wine at the eucharist, looking out over the San Francisco bay, riding a bike through the skugen of bastad.  Sometimes I am home by myself, sometimes with others.  Home is family, is friends, home is self.

Where do you call home?