Reflections on Home

Along with this reflection comes some news to share.

Mark and I are pulling up roots in San Diego to embark on a new adventure in the Portland Oregon area.  Mark landed his dream job as the director of software development at a company in Wilsonville Oregon.  It all happened rather quickly so my head is spinning a bit, but I’m very excited at the same time.  So I will be leaving this home I love in search of a new one.  

This has gotten me thinking a lot about home and what it means.  Is it the physical structure?  Is it the friends and family nearby?  Is it the love inside the home?  Is it where your soul is most at peace?  

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Right now home means red tailed hawks circling above, avocados and oranges  from the trees in the back, morning fog that covers the valley below like a white fluffy blanket, the smell of orange blossoms, Coyotes howling, Cactus flowers, Mexican food, beach days, 90 degree Decembers, a blue hammock looking out on the lavender.  More importantly, home right now means family that is close by and dear friends like Nicole, Brandon, Rene, John, Ian, Catherine, Ross, Leily and so many more who have opened their hearts and homes to us.  Right now, home means a job I love and never thought I’d leave and a house I love, that I raised my children in, and that I thought I would grow old in.

You might think in reading this that I will spend the next few paragraph lamenting my pending loss of many of these things -- but you’d be wrong.  I’ve come to realize that only two of these things really mean home to me.  The first is the love that we have in our home and this will follow us wherever we go.  It wouldn’t matter if we lived in a shack -- the love I have for my husband and my children and my closest friends, wherever they are, transcends physical space.  So I’m good there.  The other is a bit more abstract: where is my soul at peace?  There are two parts to this I think.  The first is a need to feel at home with yourself, no matter where you are.  And I do.  It’s taken a while, but I do.  I know who I am and what I value and find interesting and how I want to live my life.  I know what I stand for and what I want to contribute.  The second is a question of the environment that my soul craves.  I realize that this is different for different people.  Some thrive in the city, surrounded by people or surrounded by art or culture; others love the heat of the desert or vast expanses of sky or the peaks of mountains.  And while I’ve come to love and appreciate the beauty of this area, for as long as I can remember I have craved green spaces and growing things and the medicine that only the land can provide.  I dance on rainy days. I celebrate a new plant peeking from beneath the soil; I’m happiest on the tops of mountains; I love the music of a forest stream.  I have always been drawn to the Pacific Northwest and I feel very lucky now to have a chance in this life to live there. Little Lavender Farm will continue on, though we won’t have a physical farm for a short while. Our hope is to buy a home with some land so that we can start it back up this summer -- maybe even a little bigger.  But then we’d have to change the name, so maybe we will keep it small. Or maybe we will add raising Labs to the mix and call it the Little Labender Farm. Who knows?  It’s an adventure -- and that’s the fun of it.

Of course I will miss those we leave behind, but we will always have a room ready for you if you want to come for a visit.  Which I hope you will.

​So my apologies to all you Oregon folks out there...you’re about to get another California transplant.  But we’re pretty nice people.  I think we will fit in.