Coming Home

I recently was able to access this video that was made by Dan Redekop as a marketing tool to sell our home. The version here is edited so that it could load properly. The full version can be viewed on the facebook page Shuswap Lake Ranch.
It is not an easy piece to watch for anyone that has lived at our place. The sale meant that we were free from living in trauma, although the impact of that experience would continue for years after, but also meant the perception that we had lost our home. This loss impacted not only our family but many other people that had shared our home with us.
When we were looking for a new place to live we initially made attempts to duplicate somewhat what we had lost, but found that it was not possible. Finally we settled in a house that had a Lakeview. The biggest impact between moving from rural to urban was the loss of the animals, especially the horses that I desperately missed. The lack of land and the closeness of the neighbours was also a significant challenge.
What I did find though that came about due to this loss is that home is not tied to a physical space. It is for me that feeling of sense or security that comes within the self. This realization has allowed me to detach from the farm and adapt more of an acceptance for the impermanence of life.

Coming Home

        

Tell me dear friend, what is your home?

A feeling, the intimate and knowing smell, or bright light from window,

welcoming at the end of the day?

Home for me, at one time, was a long exhale of relief, to be there.

Dirt, long sun baked and hard.  Or after rain, sweet and smelling of leaf and wood.

Everywhere I could sense the lake, water with the long embrace of cool.

The pull to the shore on a hot day, or in winter gazing at the blue, grey icy shoreline.

There were secret places known from childhood, deep in grasses, deliciously hidden caves,

streams with miniature water falls.

The place held bones from those who had walked alongside us, laid with love under stones.

Their stories remembered as tools were used, a road crossed, the hay crop brought in.

Endless hills to climb, forests to wander, paths to follow.

All of this shared with animals, birds, friends.

The house etched with names, messages, gifts from those who loved us.

All of it was never finished, always a nail was needed or a weed to be pulled.

Tasks without end so that work was a constant companion.

Stories started at this place, and are still told.

Then it was all gone, and grief told me I had forever lost my home.

That was not true, our thoughts are not always good guides.  

All that was home has found me, but with no place.

It is now a knowing, a feeling of belonging, that happens everywhere.

Nothing has been lost, but much gained.

I am in this moment safe, and enough.

Welcome, dear friend, to my home.