Navigating by the Stars

Thoughts on Home, Belonging, and Open Waters

I’m heading home. 

The thought bubbled up unconsciously and surprised me. My mind was wandering as I sat in the back of the taxi, finding a pause between early morning goodbyes at the Gretz ashram and the impending mental upkeep of international travel. Soon, I’d be touching my zipped pockets every five minutes to make sure my passport, wallet, and phone hadn’t somehow disappeared. But for now, I stared aimlessly out the window, lumbering through traffic circles and morning fog toward the Paris airport while two guys argued on the radio (the word olympique was coming up a lot). 

But where is home? I’ve felt unmoored from that word since graduation almost a year ago.  My time pursuing a masters degree in Italy has expanded my world considerably, but my visa is winding to a close. I don’t think my time in Europe is done, but it’s the end of a chapter. I walked away from the US three years ago, frustrated with all its corruptions and shortcomings, not really planning to return - though lately, I do feel some indefinable pull between duty and desire to address that. So, I am floating. 

I have felt this way before. I spent two years in a monastery training to be a monk, but I left on the verge of going to India for five years. Resettling back into the world was rocky - everything was just so noisy. And returning to the monastery later, as a visitor, I was welcomed with open arms, but I didn’t have access to the private spaces I had enjoyed as a resident. So I had this perpetual feeling of being between two worlds.

And that wasn’t the first time. Strangers live in the house I grew up in. The farmland that surrounded my quiet hometown has been replaced by flavorless subdivisions, gas stations, and franchises. The last time I visited, I even got lost. 

But I’m not concerned. Each time I’ve felt unmoored has led to a new port of call. I don’t feel homeless, or rudderless. I just know a transition is coming. New places can be scary, frustrating, and at times crushingly lonely. But they can also be exhilarating, vitalizing, and formative. At times I’ve questioned my choices and my sanity, but the voyage has made me seaworthy and has expanded my conception of home beyond a point of origin.

Home is sitting around a paint flecked wooden table, slamming dominoes down and yelling I’m out! to the groans of my family while my niece gives me side eye.  It’s stacking firewood under the carport, the serious use of the word y’all, and meat & three with sweet tea (I’m partial to fried catfish, okra, collards, and mac & cheese). It’s hot nights with cicadas I can hear through a brick wall, tomato sandwiches with a hefty slather of mayo, and weekends on the lake with pontoon boats towing people clinging to inner tubes.

Home is the woods, cow pastures, and cornfields dotted with leaning barns and silos, chilly Halloweens with a campfire on the driveway, and riding the Zipper with sticky funnel cake fingers at the volunteer firefighter’s carnival. It’s June bugs plastering window screens and newspaper covered picnic tables blanketed in piles of crabs, wooden mallets, and heaps of paper towels stained red from Old Bay. It’s day trips to Harper’s Ferry, canoe trips on the Potomac, and riding the metro to wander around the National Mall and the Smithsonian Museums.

Home is the patchwork of juniper, cactus, and yucca stretching across the mesa toward the hanging sheets of a thunderstorm I can see fifty miles away, the smell of piñon smoke and roasting chile in the fall, dipping sopapillas into carne adovada (xmas style), and drinking homemade kombucha while DJing with friends. It’s being invited to Feast on the rez to watch the dances and eat until I burst, playing penny Keno at the casino to feel some AC, sacks of green chile cheeseburgers (Laguna Burger is best), and saying things like I know, huh.

Home is night cruises along the ridge of Mulholland Drive while the city lights stretch out below like a moonscape. It’s rooftop pools in the middle of February, Runyon Canyon hikes, Double-Doubles animal style, fresh noodles in Thai Town, and realizing I’m buying groceries behind a celebrity. It’s taking the afternoon off to go to the beach, watch the surfers, and wait for the green flash at sunset. 

Home is leaning over the railing of the Pont des Arts and taking it all in, sitting in parks with a sackful of riches from the boulangerie, and that little jolt every time I see the Eiffel Tower unexpectedly poke above of the skyline. 

Home is meeting friends at dusk for summer movies on Piazza Maggiore, eating two euro pizza slices at 3am while staring up at Due Torri, visiting the hidden Michaelangelo in San Domenico, fall runs through Giardini Margherita, and coming home to my flatmate making pisarei.

Home is farmers markets with lilikoi and breadfruit, fifteen minute rainstorms, slippahs, snatching a wad of fresh poke with a strip of nori, and trying to say aloha without sounding like a haole.

Home is not always easy for me to find. I need time to be anchored by a collage of experiences, people, and granular day to day routines. But if I’m patient, open, and willing I usually find it waiting to break through the earth, like a tulip in the spring.

I find it in deep discussions, long walks, cooking food, and the crack of the drum during a heated DJ session. I find it in rooms where people sit quietly with burning incense and lit candles, in gardens sifting compost between my fingers, and among people who read how it works. I find it in phone calls, video chats, and voice notes when you can’t be physically next to each other and in making ambitious plans, even if it’s just building castles in the sand.

So, I was surprised by the feeling of heading home. It felt like I was leaving home as I zipped my bags, left my creased work gloves on the dresser, and walked the bed linen downstairs to the buanderie. But I’m also excited to be home in 24 hours. And I know I’ll be back. I realize, my life is a vast trade route sailing to the ashram, to Atlanta, to Maryland, to New Mexico, to California, to Paris, to Bologna, to Kauai and beyond - bartering in mutual experiences, aspirations, camaraderie, and love. I can look to the horizon with confidence, even if I’m navigating by the stars.

Because I’m heading home.

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