Home

The sky treated us to a magnificent cloud display tonight. As usual my photo doesn't do it justice.

I came home from having dinner with Greg and was standing in the front yard taking photos of the interesting clouds when he called to tell me there was a really cool cloud bank in the south west part of the sky. I decided to drive outside of town, where I could get a better look. A few miles and more than an hour later I returned home with 164 photos.

I was thinking as I was driving around in the country, keeping an eye on the sky, and stopping in the road to take photos regularly, that this is something I like about living here. I like being able look up at an interesting sky and jump in the car and be far enough out of town to get some nice photos while it's still happening.

It's things like this that are so easily taken for granted, and overlooked, when one is contemplating life changes. I'm not sure what it is about our brains that they seem built to accept our "norm" as something that's available to everyone all of the time, even though we know it's not true.

Whenever you make your home, there are some unique qualities and unusual challenges. "Home" is a concept I seem destined to wrestle with constantly. Kentucky is where I was born and where I spent more than the first couple of decades of my life and more "home" to me than anywhere else. I've lived in Kansas longer than that, and although it's where I own a home, I don't think of it as "home" in the same way.

"Home" is about the people, not the place, for me. I'm at home with my family in Kentucky and always will be. I'm at home surrounded by people who care about me in Kansas. That has nothing to do with geography.

When I get right down to it, it seems I don't have a geographic place where I feel at home, and that makes it easy for me to entertain moving. But, I haven't done it. Maybe if I discovered some place that seemed like I was destined to live there I would feel compelled to move and finally feel "at home" on that level, too. But I wouldn't give up people for geography.

Only once have I travelled anywhere and had the feeling of coming home to a place I had never been. Despite all the reasons it made no sense, the night I arrived in Paris I stood looking across the Seine, feeling my feet firmly planted on home territory. But, of course, I could not stay then, or on subsequent trips. And Paris would certainly not allow me to be outside the city, taking photos of a cloud scape, in just a few minutes. But it would offer its own spectacular moments that couldn't be matched elsewhere.

That's true of wherever you call home. It, no doubt, has some extraordinary attractions or you wouldn't be there. It probably has some things you're not completely in love with too. But, for whatever reason, it is home for the moment. Maybe for some "home" can only be one location. I'm not sure if I'm fortunate or unfortunate to feel differently.