IN EACH OF OUR LIVES there is a longing, deep rooted and unshakable. It’s the longing to return to the place of our birth, the place where we grew up, the place we call home.
Regardless of where we are or what we’re doing, the memory of this place of our origin can rise to the surface of our thoughts like a trout rising in a still lake when the sun has just gone down over the mountain, and then a yearning comes into our heart to return, to go back, to turn our steps toward home.
These moments can spring unbidden from the deepest recesses of our being, and when they do, we can be overwhelmed with memories, pictures, and emotions. It’s as though we climb the dusty stairs into the attic of our consciousness, open the old chest filled with our past, and take out the quilt of our lives.
In the dim light we kneel in our thoughts and look at all the days we’ve lived, each day stitched to the one before and the one after. And though each may be different, the whole connection of those days makes a pattern that becomes clear only as we look back with eyes that now know that there is a beginning…and an end.
In this moment, we remember the road we’ve traveled. As we turn to look, we see our own footprints mixed with those of all who have traveled with us. Then we know that though this road goes on into a future to reach an end we cannot yet see and may even fear, it is also the road home.