There’s No Place Like Home, there’s no place like home….

Daily Prompt: There’s No Place Like Home

If you had the opportunity to live a nomadic life, traveling from place to place, would you do it? Do you need a home base? What makes a place “home” to you?

This prompt caught my attention.  I am a retired military wife.  We have lived several places in our marriage.  Not a real gypsy style nomadic life, but close enough.

As a child I did not like watching “The Wizard of Oz”, it scared me.  I don’t like flying monkeys at all… They creep me out (but, I digress).  As an adult, I find I quote this movie often.  Here is one of my favorite excerpts from the movie:

“Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
Glinda: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself ”  (Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum)

Home.  That magic four letter word.  You can travel the world.  You can have adventures galore.  Meeting new people is fascinating.  Hearing different languages all around you is thrilling.  You know walking down a street in a foreign country that you are the one different, you are the exception.

Seeing new views of the world is something that cannot be captured by a camera. There is an essence that thrives in places that is indescribable.  It’s the smell of the air that cannot translate onto a picture.  It’s the feeling of the sun or rain or wind that is different from other places in the world.  That is hard to explain.

Travelling, living for extended periods in other places is rewarding.  It is fun.  It is a living education. It is lonely.

To be able to come home is what the heart speaks to you.  Home, that place that your spirit needs.

Yes, I have travelled.  I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet and live among people who did not speak my language.  I would not trade one experience for anything.

What I do know is this, there is a part of you that needs home.  I know I need a sense of the familiar.  Home.  It can be an apartment, a home, a family, or a city.

I must have several versions of home.  A home base that is filled with my belongings, my pictures, my knickknacks, my clothes, my bed.  That is where I live, and I am grateful for this.  I also have home with my family.  Their arms surrounding me, their laughter lifting my spirits.  Their love of me just as I am.  This home is my heart’s treasure.  I love my family.  They are my gifts for my heart.

I also have my hometown.  I moved when I was 19, almost 40 years ago.  There are times when I need to get away from the home where my belongings are, and times when, although my family is comforting and wonderful, I need to go home.  I need to see the rolling hills of northwestern Pennsylvania.  I need to see the green of the trees that is not duplicated in any place I have seen.  I need to fill my lungs with the rancid smell of the air that is perfumed with the oil refineries that make my hometown what  it is.

I may never again live in my hometown, but it will always be home.  There is no place like home to me.  It calls out to me, memories echo in my heart, my mind, my spirit.  I can travel and live and move from place to place, but there is a place that draws me back.  It is home.

Thanks for stopping by.  DAF

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Nature was still

Go to the nearest window. Look out for a full minute. Write about what you saw.

This is today’s Daily Prompt.  At first I wasn’t going to write on it.  I have a beautiful view that I thought I actually saw each day.  But, while waiting for my coffee this morning, I stood at my patio door and looked out to my back yard.

At first, it looked the same.  Deck with winter dirty furniture on it.  Dormant grass, leafless trees and the pond.  I stood and actually started to see what I was looking at.  There is a difference, you know.

The pond was still.  No ripples, no currents.  No fish jumping, or turtles swimming, nothing.  Still as the glass I was looking through.  The morning sun reflected on the water.  The brown, dry reeds on the other side of the pond swayed almost without causing notice.  I looked at their reflection in the pond.  The sun made the dry brown reeds look golden when their image reflected on the still water.  They were very pretty.  So pretty, I thought I might venture over and walk around by them.  That is the marsh side of the pond.  I have been over there a few times, but haven’t ventured over there recently.  It was tempting.

I stood and looked at the beauty of my yard.  I didn’t notice the deck needed cleaned.  I didn’t notice the window also needed cleaning.  I just saw an invitation from nature to come and visit.

As my alloted minute was about to end, a great grey heron flew from the corner of the pond and soared between the houses.  What an excellent end to a minute.

As I drank my coffee, I returned to the window.  It was such a pleasant experience, I thought I would continue.

Shortly after coffee this morning, we ventured out to walk our puppy.  Hubby and I took a longer walk today, which suited me just fine.  I was in the mood to get out into this beckoning nature I had witnessed.

We left the quiet of the house and heard the stillness of nature.  Well, not really.  The air was alive with the sound of birds chirping and calling out to one another.  Crows were perched in leafless trees cawing to one another.  There was the distant sound of traffic on the interstate. Squirrels jumped from tree to tree, busy in their days.  There was life to the nature I quietly viewed.

As I sit and write this, the wind has picked up just a bit.  The reeds across the pond are dancing now and the pond is full of ripples.  The reflections are broken up and longer.  The marsh seems alive.  Not quiet like this morning.

Still, there is an invitation to come and visit.  To be in the midst of the palette given to us by our Creator.  He leads us beside still waters.  He restores our soul.  He paints the sky with colors so vivid we stand in awe of them.  He created the life that is not still, the squirrels, the birds, the herons, and the snakes living in the marsh across the pond.

I am grateful that I stopped today and looked beyond my boundaries.  I am glad I actually saw what was in front of me.  Too often, I think, we do not see the beauty and the joy and the invitations issued to us by what surrounds us.  I hope that this is not just a short, quick lesson for me.  I hope that I actually stop to look at what is in front of me from now on.

Thanks for stopping by.  I appreciate your visit.  DAF

R.I.P. Me…

Daily Prompt:Write your own eulogy.

( Disclaimer: I have thought of doing a daily prompt for the past several weeks, this is my first attempt at it)

DearAnonymousFriend

A virtual unknown, literally…  never disclosing who she was.  Tight lipped about personal things, but allowing herself to talk about things she passionately (well, felt like) writing about.

Attempted to be humorous and often failing, but was followed by a few (well, maybe twenty).  Poor DAF, as she was affectionately known to those who followed her.  She was unknown and inconsistent in writing, but loved to comment on posts she read.

Outside the virtual world she was known as the ‘Crazy Aunt’.  That person who hugged a lot, kissed your cheek and pinched your backside.  She would stand up to anyone who would say anything against her family.  She loved to encourage her nieces and nephews.  She was their cheerleader.

She loved life, family and most of all she loved God.  Her faith was steady and she would pray for a person at the drop of a pin.  Coming into her home she would greet you with a hug and a laugh and begin to offer you food or drink even if you were not hungry or thirsty.  She loved to listen to people, hoping that in listening they could hear themselves and know that things were okay.

She leaves her family with memories, lots of memories.  Times of laughter and tears.  She was easy-going for the most part, although it is said that when Mom got quiet it was time to tread softly even if you knew you weren’t to blame. (author’s note: sometimes Mom’s just need quiet, so it is best to develop a look that will cause children to head to their rooms on their own)  Even as adults, these children would know if they had crossed that invisible line of “I can’t believe you just did that” (c’mon, we all know that look!)

Her dear hubby is said to have done a happy dance on learning of her demise, he knew that he could once more eat peanut butter toast three times a day without being corrected and given veggies instead.  He did lose his enthusiasm when he discovered she had cleaned out the fridge before passing on.  She didn’t want him to have anything that had already expired. (No, that is not yogurt, it was milk in its former life)

He also misses her sarcasm.  Her wit, when it comes to serious matters.  He will miss not having his coffee made each morning and has been heard to quote the movie Pleasantville:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120789/quotes?qt=qt0274526  “Where’s my dinner?”

Her final request for her memorial service was to bring lots of balloons and stories about her that made you laugh.  She wants people to remember her with laughter and joy.

Laughing was her favorite thing to do.  Even in difficult times she was heard to laugh, but of course, sometimes there is nothing better to do than laugh.  Crying makes your face all red and puffy.

May you think fondly on those who have preceded us and remember with graciousness the times they made you smile.

Thanks for stopping by, DAF