You are home

Have you ever heard the saying: “Everywhere you go, there you are”?

Often we think of this in a negative way: you can’t escape yourself, your problems will stay your problems until you deal with them. Or, in a particularly Scandinavian turn of phrase: “nissen flytter med” (the pixie — or elf or gnome — comes with you).

But as I was sitting in silence this morning, the saying came to me as an expression of home, of being at home. My mind wanders as minds do, but everywhere it goes, I am at home, and every time it comes back, there I am. I have moved house, country, profession, language, focus, too many times to count, but no matter what I land on, I am me. I see it all, I experience it all, as me.

I am aware that this has not always been as straightforward as that. I haven’t always known who I am, and we all have blind spots, some of them massive.

I am also aware of the tension inherent in this sentiment, especially during those stocktaking moments built into our lives: New Year’s Day, summer and winter solstice, Yum Kippur, confession, the start and end of new relationships or jobs, confirmation, moving house. These moments are felt as a zero-set in some (large or small) part of our lives and we tend to experience that kind of thing as black-and-white, stop-and-go. We think: we are in a new territory now. There is an opportunity for wholesale change, the possibility to let go and move on.

This morning, however, what felt grounding was the fact that even as we change, zero-set, and move on, we are home. We are us. Not in the sense that we cannot change at all, or (more to the point) that we don’t. I believe in the infinite possibility of change and growth for all of us.

But in the sense that we don’t have to be losing ourselves in the process. That the essence of who we are remains the same. That we are home.

Happy 2023!