The Healing of Home

I miss the forests. Especially at times like these, I long for the lush greens of the deep woods. The Centurion Cedars call my name on the fresh, clean breezes from home. The Great Northwest will always hold a special place in my heart, and I crave that resting place of regeneration that it offers. Walking through the woods when times got rough always brought solace and calm to my broken spirit. The smells of the decaying mulch intertwined with freshly washed evergreens are becoming a distant memory for me. I hunger for the rejuvenation and healing that home offers.

So often people refer to home as "the place your heart is", or "where-ever your loved ones are". Both options hold truth, and yet we can be torn. Having lived here for almost 7 years now has still not caused me to have much affection for this place. Springtime is pleasant, but only as it tends to remind me of the summers in Washington. The city is still ugly, dirty, and devoid of beauty. If I look through a pair of rose colored glasses, I can see the early blossoms and blue skies, but then my eyes are assaulted by the vision of perpetual trash around the bases of these flowering bushes (certainly not trees!). The rows of graffiti laden fences block out the beauty of the sunny skies.

Maybe my mood is just gloomy from a hangover of my health issues that I'm dealing with right now. Maybe I'm just homesick for the budding tulips, forsythia and lilacs that this time of year represents to me. While trying to focus on the love and support of my awesome family, I still cling to wisps of a memory. Dreams of a walk through the healing woods of home fill my senses.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms." Henry David Thoreau