This is Home

This is home, she thought to herself, as she stared at interwoven branches casting heavy shadows against the afternoon sun; though she was miles away from the place where she laid her head to rest at night.

That particular balance of stillness and sound that can only be found in nature filled her, until the breeze penetrated her skin and birdsongs floated weightlessly through her mind. She reflected, not for the first time, on the idea that home isn’t a place so much as a state of being, something you carry with you wherever you go; and that the places we call home are those that we’ve deemed charging points, resonate chances to realign.

It was in that moment, with sunlight glimmering off her eyelashes and waves lapping in the distance, that she remembered the deeper meaning of two timeless truths. You are what you surround yourself with, and home is where the heart is. Looking and listening, feeling and breathing in the harmonious dance of nature, it was so clear. It’s symbiotic. Giving and receiving. Creating and experiencing. Living and learning. Doing and being. It’s all an interplay, an un-choreographed dance, wherein both partners naturally exchange taking the lead.

And the secret, the thing that allows you to remain at home wherever you may find yourself, is balance. With that, she closed her eyes and inhaled, and both she and the forest smiled.

© 2021 Cristen Writes