***
48 hours after setting foot in Scotland, my father died.
I said to a friend that what I wanted more than anything else was to just get back to California and just get on with it. My life, I think I meant - although I didn't say it.
He didn't say anything to me, and I don't know that he was even aware of it: but I saw it fleetingly: a flash of hurt and then anger in his eyes for a fraction of a second. If my life is over here, then what did that make, does that make what happens when I am over there?
Weeks later, when I was still in Scotland, another friend and I walked in the dark on another icey night in Edinburgh, I talked about coming back to California. I said something about coming home. He looked at me crossly and asked me where was I calling home.
Another time he said how did it make the people in Scotland feel when i said home is here - far away from them and the amazing things we do together and the very deep connection we all have.
I stayed in Scotland longer than I thought I would. 12 weeks.
Every week loving with more intensity and strength the people I am blessed with there.
Every week feeling more and more like I need to leave - now.
All the while wondering why - why would anyone feel like they want to leave - why would anyone want to leave a life they love so much to be somewhere else?
So I'm here. And now I know why. Because this is my home.
***
Because this morning, sitting here watching the sun rise I understood what the longing in my heart to be in this place is - I came realise that that life is not just the series of decisions and encounters that we make 9-5 Mon-Fri, filled out by time outside of that made up of time with our (other) friends and family.
In fact that's just one, inevitably, poignantly, transient strand to the beautiful tapestry of our lives.
Phases in work projects come to a close.
Family get togethers end.
Lunch with friends finishes. A night at the movies ends as the credits roll. Dinner with friends ends in a bus ride home. Visits to your nephews end with a bed time story till next time, or with you running out to catch a 7am train to work, and them in their red and white striped pyjamas still sleepy, but so bright eyed, standing in the hall saying 'Bye Rakhi Bua' - and you running back for one last very quick, very tight hug and a kiss and a whisper to say 'see you again soon sweet thing'.
But there's a life that exists outside of our interactions and engagement with the world around us.
And maybe, it came to me this morning, our most real life happens, when we are really alone: when we listen to the still small voice that tells us how authentically, how wholly we are being in this world. It tells us whether or not we are on purpose.
***
It tells us things like whether or not the air that we are breathing is nourishing us. It tells us whether the life we were born for is being realised. It tells us if we are honouring our own divinity. It tells us what we're tied to, and why. And it tells us when we're deluding ourselves.
We have to listen. That's when real life happens - in the gaps between the dramas we construct to entertain ourselves when we're playing, not listening.
It speaks different things to different people.
And maybe, if you are 35 years old, if you're not in a soul mate relationship, if the loss of a parent forces you in to needing to heal from a relationship where love, protection and cherishing had broken down, if you wake up every single morning thinking you can't cope with the temperature of the environment you're in, if you sometimes feel close to being overwhelmed by the cumulative force of all these things that exist in the 'offs' inbetween the 'ons' then maybe - outside of the temporal relationships and creative work that sweeten the hours of the day and the days of the month - the voice tells you to be brave; maybe it tells you there's somewhere else where you won't feel the cold; maybe it tells you there's somewhere else where you won't feel overwhelmed. Maybe it tells you: You deserve Love. You can succeed. Trust your Heart. Dreams come True.
***
Home I have realised is the place where, when there's just you and the elements, where when there isn't anyone to love you or to hold you - when you stop everything that you are doing, what you hear in your moments of complete aloneness is the sound of the sky, and the stars and the ocean and the cliffs and the waves and the sun and the wind speaking out to you silently, eternally: You are Beautiful. You are Safe. You are Cherished. You are Supported.
Then you know you're home.
***
Family - I've come to understand - is not at all defined only as the people you are born with.
Family is a circle of love in which you love, protect, cherish and support one another. Interaction might still end, but contact doesn't - because in this circle of love, all are always connected to the others - there's no ending or beginning: there's just being.
It's never over.
Wherever you are, it's never over.
But the place we all want to be, need to be - in the times in between the times with our loved ones - is Home.
***
For my Family: don't think that being away from you means that I don't love you or recognise and give thanks for your presence in my life as the blessing that it is. I do. And I think that not having every day interaction does not mean not having constant contact. You're in my heart.
But when I was all alone this morning, I heard those three magical words - and they didn't come from the presence of another person, and I heard them in a way that I don't hear them anywhere else in the world -from the silent breath of the wind, and the sky, and the sun and the Ocean and the cliffs:
You are Beautiful. You are Safe. You are Cherished. You are Supported.
And then I knew: I am Home.
***
So collections of three magical words I would tell my Family over there:
I love you.
I miss you.
I am happy.
See you soon.
and this:
It's Never Over.
***
