Home. 

What is home?  Is it a place?  A sentimental location?  A house?  A state of mind? Is it really "where the heart is"?

I was born in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky nearly 33 years ago.  My family migrated to south Florida and I spent my teenage years there baking in the sun like a red-backed crab.  I returned to the bluegrass state to finish college and to make my way in the world.

Then I moved around.  Florida, Colorado, India, Nepal…

Then, eventually, out to the northern suburbs of Seattle.  From the summer of 1999 to the summer 2005, I made my home in the land of overcast skies and coffee.  It felt like home, but then again it didn’t really…

In over 5 years, even though our family size doubled and we settled into a community, this didn’t make us more stable– we Johnsons (plural) were nomads. We lived in 5 different apartment/houses because our sights were set outward–into the broader (increasingly shrinking) world.

We moved on with intention.  Singapore, Thailand, China.  And Xining became our home (of sorts).

But as I stepped back onto American soil for the first time in a year and a half, I wondered if it would feel like home or something else.  It felt (and feels like) home still.  It is my culture.  It is a place I take ownership of (for better or worse.)  Maybe the long absence revealed the fluidity of being and living in my homeland.  I just feel like I am flowing with the stream (instead of against it).

I don’t know how to describe it really.  I’m not doing a good job.  Have you ever been roller skating in rented skates?  If you have ever done this for an hour or more then you will know what I’m talking about.  You know the feeling when you take off those uncomfortable skates and slide your contorted foot back into your own well-worn shoes.  It is instant comfort and gratification.  Your shoes know you like an intimate friend and they are kind and welcoming.  That’s kind of what this feels like.  There is no thought-process or analysis going on.  It just is.  And I just am.  Sounds very Zen I know.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t dissonance going on.  Internally, there is also dissonance.  I’m not really sure at times how I fit in here (in China? in this world?) anymore.  I have no great desire to raise the tent stakes and relocate back here.  In many ways, I’m in the same position I was in in 1998 when I ventured out to Nepal/India.  That was the first time I felt "ruined" for the ordinary / life as usual.  That was when I knew there was more out there to be had.  More out there that needed doing (or more correctly, being.)  And so we went down that path as a family.  And in some ways I knew that bridges were being burned (whether I liked it or not) to the past and consequential futures.  Luckily new bridges can always be built to somewhere else.  It’s hard to know where bridges will lead until you start building them unfortunately…

All this to say it’s nice to be home for a while (wherever that is?) and even though it involves some dexterity and care, it’s nice being able to plant your feet on different continents (where people love you) without spraining anything too badly.  It takes some doing.  It’s confusing at times.  It’s not an easy road. 

But then again what things of value in life are truly easy?  There might be a few of these easy-value things, but there aren’t many.  And they usually don’t involve roller skates.  So, on the next "All Skate" I recommend we all head straight for home.  As you like it…