Suddenly the raindrops that fall have a meaning,
Sprinklin’ the scene, makes it all clean. Dorothy from the musical, The Wiz
This morning as I was driving to work something unexpected happened. I was listening and singing to a play list that I call “Mellow Mamas,” belting out each familiar tune as it started playing (including “Alfie” that I wrote about the other day.) As the first strains of music began (including the sweet tone of a bell ringing) of the song “Home” from the Broadway musical The Wiz began tears sprang to my eyes and even as I began to sing along with the familiar and much-loved words, spilled over. In some ways I have spent my whole life searching for “home,” and even though as a quasi-enlightened adult I recognize that the “home” that I’m looking for doesn’t really exist outside of my own mental/emotional/spiritual construction of it. In other words, the home am longing for, missing, wishing I was “there” is not a physical place at all–though to be sure, place is an important consideration for me in home whether I find it or create it. I am searching for a place where there’s “love overflowing,” where there’s a sense of comfort, familiarity, a place where I can exhale, be myself and know that I am totally accepted for exactly who I am with all my flaws and foibles.
I have known for a long time that to find what I am looking for I need only take the journey inward to begin to define and then create for myself the home that I’m looking for. As I look back at the songs I have written they are filled with references to a desire to find this mythical place I call home. But even though I have yet to find and/or create it, I am grateful nonetheless for some of the places I’ve been able to make into home.
I think part of my weeping was the sense of nostalgia in the song, or perhaps I was simply feeling nostalgic. I think when life gets to be a little bit too much I find myself missing my parents, missing the feeling of home that existed back when I was a child and felt safe. It didn’t mean life was always fun and carefree, but as the song says, “It sure would be nice to be back home where there’s love and affection.” Home, as imperfect as it sometimes was, was still a place where I felt and experienced love and where I developed deep ties and connections not only to my family, but to the idea of family–that there were people in the world who love and put up with you. While that’s not true for everyone–some people have family of choice versus family by blood or genetics–it was true for me. So the idea of home always has people connected to it. I’m sure that living by myself sometimes makes this particular longing more acute.It has been a long, trying, week and there have been times when weariness has overtaken me. I am grateful for the small release of tears I experienced today driving in to work as I listened to the song. It reconnected me to an aspect of my journey that I had lost track of. The search for home is not painful. I’m learning and growing along the way. As Dorothy goes on to point out in the song, I too have “had my mind spun around in space, yet I’ve watched it growing…” I’ve been through a fair amount of drama over the past few years, and in spite of how painful those times were, I also know I grew tremendously in strength and character through what I experienced. I wouldn’t necessarily want to relive it, but I definitely wouldn’t trade what I learned in the process.
I am grateful for the home I have now. It isn’t all that I hope for yet, but I am working toward making it what I need for it to be. And for now that’s a very good thing. Here are the remaining lyrics to the song “Home,” written by Charlie Smalls back in 1975.
Maybe there’s a chance for me to go back there Now that I have some direction
It sure would be nice to be back home Where there’s love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time in my life to grow up
Time be my friend, let me start again Suddenly my world has changed it’s face
But I still know where I’m going
I have had my mind spun around in space
And yet I’ve watched it growing
If you’re list’ning God
Please don’t make it hard to know
If we should believe in the things that we see
Tell us, should we run away
Should we try and stay
Or would it be better just to let things be?
Living here, in this brand new world
Might be a fantasy
But it taught me to love
So it’s real, real to me
And I’ve learned
That we must look inside our hearts
To find a world full of love
Like yours, like mine
Like home…
