The Threads of Home

I have longed for the feeling of solidity I see in so many. That confidence in the place they inhabit. Preparing to leave my home in Carlsbad to adventure around Europe I have been struck by a different feeling mixed into the excitement for travel. It took a while to understand that the feeling was loss. An emotion I did not firstly recognize.  The grounded feeling I have been trying so hard to grasp for, I was now feeling as a tug of that solidity. Each time I leave New Zealand I have felt the familiar tug of my homeland, my family and my origins. Yet to have this feeling for a place and a life that I myself have cultivated is a new experience. The texture of the life I am creating threads its way through places I would not have imagined. I am grateful for the ever growing assortment of colors in my life's tapestry. Those threads now include dancing. The delight I feel every time I arrive at the studio to learn a new step, is always surpassed by the joy of being greeted my those friends and instructors i am enveloped by. Adding to those threads is a growing social dancing enjoyment. Slowly putting to rest the nervousness of asking a stranger to dance. As I have said goodbyes to dance friends, swimming buddies, and the wonderful groups of friends, I have learnt to welcome the tug of sadness. Strange as that may seem, for me that sadness reassures me of the lines that tie me to my life. The new sensation alien before has now become a comfort. Knowing the place I have thought of as a home base to travel from, now is the anchor to which those threads are attached as they gently pull on me to return.