Homecoming

It was 1999, I was 14 years old. We had just moved from Arizona to Costa Rica to avoid WWIII and the dodge the inevitable draft. I had just gotten out of a taxi and was standing on the driveay.  Before heading into the hateful house full of boxes, I made a vow: I would never call another house “home” again. Instead, I would refer to any structure I inhabited as a “house.” Home was gone. Maybe my parents were right about all that, and maybe it I should have been more grateful for their sacrifice to leave family and friends and move to Costa Rica–but I hated every second of it. I hated it with the rage that only a teenager can access. 

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I look back over the past 25 years now with enough perspective to integrate some life experiences. Now 40 years old, I appreciate the survival instinct that I needed to live inside of a familial, social, and cultural scenario that I had no control over. I also understand that these moments of resolve ripple into adulthood. Trauma responses from childhood have a way of inhibiting the very thing that you need most. If you are always in fight/flight/fawn mode it’s impossible to access the parts of your brain that are grounded, vulnerable, and mutually connected–even though you long for it. 

The last 25 years have certainly been disruptive. They have been marked by several international moves, periods of “no fixed address” and a crash landing in Manitoba where I built my adult life, always with one foot out the door, even while I have tried to make a nest. 

As I have made my alternative little life in this off-grid cabin these last 3.5 years, something is shifting in me. I am meeting some part of myself that has been missing for 25 years. Dare I say it–I’ve made myself a home? 

The experience of waiting for my cabin to burn was unpleasant, but oddly familiar. I am used to disruption. On Thursday, between checking the fire map for updates and refreshing the news feed, I had a chat with my sisters. Diana reminded me that we used to play “go bag” as kids. She tells me there was a time when I was 7 years old when I actually packed my go-bag every night and unpacked it in the morning. I don’t remember this. But there isn’t a time in my life that I don’t remember being a little on edge. Ready for anything–ready to fight, escape, rescue, even die for my family if needed. 

But resting? Relaxing? Easing into life? Not sure what that could feel like.

Until this week.  

Two other things happened in the span of a week that have invited something new–someone new–to emerge.  

The first was a soft landing during a crisis. I left my home vulnerable, and my friends had a place for me. During my whole stay I was cared for, fed, invited in, and tended. While I was staying with friends, strangers held the fire back. Through a record breaking heatwave and strong winds, crew members showed up to tend multiple wildfires. These folks kept the Piney fire from reaching Woodridge and my little cabin– a home containing everything I own, everything I need to survive, and the labor of the last three years of my life. 

So at the end of this intense evacuation I got to go back to my cabin. I didn’t have to leave it all behind again. I didn’t have to start over. And I don’t have to be self sufficient to ensure that. I can rely on the beautiful care of loved ones and strangers alike.

The second thing that happened was that I became a Canadian Citizen. While I have lived here my whole adult life, my status here has always been somewhat precarious. I was allowed to stay first on a student visa, then a work permit, finally permanent residency. All of these require tending, updating, documentation, and can be revoked if the requirements are not met or simply expire. There is always a chance I’d have to leave behind my life.

Citizenship is different. I am 100% Canadian now. I am fully here. I can leave and come back. This is my nation. This is my country. This is my flag. This is my national anthem. 

This wild week has been a gift. I wasn’t wrong when I was 14. Not every house is a home, and the house I was living in was not my home. In 1999 I was at the beginning of an unpredictable 25 year journey. I have learned a lot about myself since then. I know that I am as restless as the wind. I know this will not be my only home. But after this week, one thing I am certain of: This little cabin in the woods is my home. 

And maybe, just maybe, for the first time in 25 years, I can lower my guard, and finally come home.