Monday Minute -- Learning from the Turtle

The Monday Minute
Quilts ~ Inspiration ~ Lifestyle ~ with Nancy Kirk

January 21, 2008

LEARNING FROM THE TURTLE A good friend of mine moved to another state recently and called last night, telling me how homesick she is feeling. She loves her new job, the condo she is renting is nice, there is all the fresh fruit in the world (think Florida), plus there is no snow and we just got hit with another storm today. But nothing feels like "home" for her yet. The water tastes different. The TV stations have different names and none of the channels are on the same numbers on the cable box. The newspaper doesn't look familiar and the comics are different from the ones she liked at "home." Old friends are not available for a quick burger after work. So it just doesn't feel like "home". Moving is considered the third most stressful experience in life - right after death of a spouse and divorce, and I think the stress levels get higher the older we get and the more set in our ways. I've reached the point in life where I don't even go to new stores for Christmas shopping because I don't want the stress of learning my way around a new store. I get upset when they rearrange my neighborhood grocery store. I know that's silly in many ways, but it's still true. I know a big move is coming fairly soon. I have a 17 room house with two people as permanent residents, and one of my daughter's friends in the spare room. But it's still a big place to manage, and it is completely full - of stuff. My stuff, my late husband's stuff, business stuff, my daughter's stuff, and just a little bit of my son's stuff - he finally moved his pre-college clothes and two car loads of other miscellaneous stuff out during Christmas. I can't move really soon, because I have to deal with the stuff first, but within the next couple of years, some serious downsizing is in my future as my daughter finishes school and moves into her own space. It means letting go and going through a grieving process, for a part of my life which is finished or finishing now. It brings up lots of great memories and some sad ones - a lot of life has happened in this house. We moved here the day we got our son, Ben. His adoption caseworker brought him to the old house and we put his small bag of things on the moving van with ours and all moved together to this house - he was 4 and next week he celebrates his 25th birthday. We brought Jessica home to this house - she was seven months old. She has never lived anywhere else. When we first looked at the house, we knew we were planning to adopt and would need more room. We never expected 17 rooms, but when we walked in, we knew it was our house and made a full price offer within 30 minutes. We lived through Bill's cancer in this house, and when his life was done I held his hand while he died in this house. The thing we have to learn from the turtle is that the real home goes with us, no matter where we go. Home is a state of mind, not a structure or a city or a country. Home is made up of the memories and experiences of the past, and the way we meld them into our experience of the present. I heard a wonderful folk singer many years ago who wrote hauntingly beautiful songs about home. During the performance, she told us of the home where she grew up in Appalachia, up a hollow with no electricity or plumbing, but filled with a big family and lots of love and music. She had been writing about that place for many years after she moved away and was spending her life touring and performing. She had the chance to go back "home" after her parents died, and she was so excited to visit that log cabin and finally "go home". When she got there, she found the town was all electric, they had city water and sewage and when she went to see her home, it was an empty lot - the cabin had been torn down many years before. She realized the home she had been singing about all those years really existed inside her head -- and she could always carry that home with her no matter where she lived. When I move, I know I may have to learn new station numbers on the cable box, maybe a new newspaper depending on where I move, and how to live with a lot less stuff. People facing a move to a senior living center or nursing home may have to leave behind all their furniture, books, art work, beloved pets. Downsizing will hard, moving be will be hard and I'm sure there will be grieving involved. I just hope I remember the turtle, and that my real "home" goes with me wherever I go. This is Nancy Kirk with your Monday Minute.

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