Home.

 

 Home. It’s a part of me, embedded like stone, bonded. 

Home. It changes with the seasons and goes where the heart is, but the heart changes often too. 

 

Home can be many different things: A place and also not, a person and also a thing. It can be shades of yellow and hidden mountain creeks, but it can also be stucco and four walls of newly painted construction. It can be wild, free, inconsistent, and full of memories that both shatter and build. 

 

Yet, home is also the place where safety covers you like a blanket of soft clouds, reminding you of the strength that is found is staying still, even if your fear is telling you to run back to yellow lilies & hummingbirds. 

 

Home is many places, but roots run deep. Roots don’t always build stationary houses, but I am certain roots link to your DNA and become as much a part of you as the blood that flows in your veins. You can paint your body like a canvas, plant a garden, and weed… but roots are still at the center, giving beauty and tragedy to all that grows around you. I have spent many years of my life pretending like the roots that have grown in to a tree are separate from who I am, giving voice and power to all that I may have grown ashamed of. No more. These roots are beautiful, even when surrounded by tumbleweeds, dirt, and mire. I am learning the art of letting these roots live free in the light, because these roots have given life to this glorious life-garden I have built from water, toil, and seed. 

 

Home is many places, and it’s been with many people & things. 

 

You, them, us, and me: We are inseparable, because our roots run deep. 

 

I’m grateful for this garden grown from roots:  Ever-changing, growing, and yet staying the same. Growing and building. Breaking and Learning. Loving & Losing. 

 

I would do it all again, though I may change some things along the way. 

 

-Rachel