Of Home and Travel
I am sitting in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. I have a long layover until I depart for Bakersfield, California, to see my mother. It’s been three years since I have made this trip. Long overdue. I travel this time with both of my older sisters. We leave the seclusion of our Quail Valley neighborhood to make this pilgrimage of sorts, masked up, COVID tested, ready to celebrate my mother’s 86th birthday tomorrow.
Initially, it’s hard to leave my home. That is where the vast majority of my time is spent investing, working, teaching, learning, growing, giving. I am the hub of the family wheel who makes sure all the parts are moving, healthy, and happy. I create spaces of beauty, comfort, and care. My husband does a fantastic job in my absence, for sure, but cannot replace my unique role in our lives. I just got a text that my little Maltipoo is depressed and that neither my husband or son can substitute for whom she really wants. Isn’t it nice to be missed?
But once I finally leave, get on the plane and begin my journey, I feel like my essential self. Independent, curious, open, adventurous. As much as my home roots me, traveling makes me come alive. For me, I need the strong roots of home AND the rhythms of exploration, trying new things, spontaneity, a sense of timelessness. I don’t have to watch the clock right now to know when to cook dinner for everyone, when to take someone to a sports practice, or when to grab my Walmart pick-up. I just need to make my next flight.
Like Maslow’s hierarchy, it’s important to have foundations of physiological, safety, and belonging needs met before we fully experience strength and freedom. A deep sense of Home meets those core needs and gives us that surety to go out in confidence and curiosity. Grounding + rooting at home can lead to fruitful flourishing out in the world. The balance of staying and going is a lovely rhythm of health. I come back from adventures happy and filled in ways that fuel my vocation at home.
It’s easy to get stuck, never leave, or to find it too challenging, but once we step out in faith, getting outside our comfort zones, our viewpoints expand, different sides of our personality emerge, and flexibility is nurtured. It’s good to be at home. And it’s good to go to new places. Both help us to become well-rounded people.
So as I am able this week, I will share the journey of my visit in California. Observations, insights, and small revelations. I believe this week will be beautiful and challenging, shaping me in new ways. I am looking for God’s invitation to enter in, to pay attention, to open myself up. And then on Saturday, I will come back to the place I love more than any other, the South Carolina home where my dearest people live.
Sipping a London Fog tea latte,
Aimee