Sometimes, I fall hard for a song. It’s the kind of crush that is almost unbearable. I can listen to the song seven times in a row three times a day and still can’t seem to get enough. Still, some songs hit me harder than others.
“Home” by Edwarde Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It’s just so simple, sappy and sing-able---like song candy—but for me there is something a bit deeper.
This song found me, more than I it. I am hardly a person who is ever ahead of any trend, musical or otherwise, but with this song (and Gaga’s first album, oddly enough) it does seem like I heard it before most people I know. I was finishing a two and half month long cross-the-country-and-back road trip with two of my closest people. Man, oh man, you’re my best friend, I scream it to the nothingness. There ain’t nothin’ that I need... I’ll follow you into the park, through the jungle, through the dark
We had already experienced more than our share of car trouble when we 
landed in a middle-of-nowhere ditch during a fluke December flood in Kentucky. We survived, but our car was not so lucky. We found ourselves stranded, trying to have the car repaired locally, and growing restless for “home”. As grateful as we were for the people and places that had taken us in during our travels, we all craved an end to the couch, car and/or house surfing and to once again be on solid ground. Anxious to be home, now, we opted to rent a U-haul, (and a flatbed trailer for the car) and drive those last 15 hours up into snowy New England. Tired, overwhelmed and still taking-in all of our many and varied adventures with friends, family, and strangers around US, we spoke very little in those last hours. The three of us taking shifts driving, shot-gunning and sitting cramped on the floor between to two seats. Still, it was a welcome improvement from our water–logged, heatless, and much loved Frida Forester. Moats & boats & waterfalls, alley ways & (cell) phone calls, I’ve been everywhere with you
I drove the last leg, in the early morning. Once back in the Pioneer Valley, I already began to feel relief, I turned on a familiar local radio station. As I rounded the final hill and made the final curve on my way to my parents house (the impetus for the trip had been our apartment being foreclosed upon, so the home I was returning to was the one I grew up in), this magical song came on. I felt like crying and laughing. La la la la, take me Home. Baby, I’m coming Home.
Last night Edward came to Twilight, and no, I’m not talking vampires. (Although when I overheard some young thing saying “I mean, when is Edward going to be on” all sassy and rolling her eyes, I did draw a parallel.) Twilight is Salt Lake’s free concert series. This year I have a craft booth there and my friend and I have been discussing how having a booth at this event is so grounding. You walk out into the park at the peak of the concert and it is a sea of people with few 
landmarks. Meeting up with friends once there is a challenge at best. Thousands swarm and cell phones stop working due to sheer concentration. Yet our cozy booth, complete with a mustard yellow lounge area, is like home. We laugh until we think we’ll die, barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you
Hearing this song again, and live, I could not help reflecting on the past couple years. I love the song because it portrays a nomadic lifestyle so beautifully and yet also validates the struggle and the power in enduring. Literally the song speaks to romantic love, but for me, the “you” in the song is me. Home is wherever I’m with you. From foreclosure to flood. From forlorn and isolated in Guate to the rush and uncertainty of moving to Utah with nothing but a backpack and the hope of something new. In the midst of shifts and uncertainty in my relationships, friends and family, Through it all, I had me. At times I had little else to rely on. Home is when I’m alone with you. 
Here I am, creating home daily (and apparently weekly at a craft booth in the park), in Salt Lake City, Utah. The desert and the mountains are beginning to feel familiar to this east coast native. I never would have expected to be here, much less a year and half later, calling Salt Lake home. Yet the disbelief doesn't make it less true. Home is where you make it.
Ahh, Home
Yes, I am Home
young children, I facilitate play daily, yet generally reject the idea that I participate. I tend to conjure images of a preschool teacher who worships disney movies and wears whinnie-the-pooh sweatshirts, you know the type. Even as a I write this I fear that perception. Yet here was an adult woman with two kids and she was really asking: “how do I connect with my kids the way you do?” Play offers us an opportunity to be outside ourselves and our comfort zone, to lower our fears about how we are being perceived, and really connect to people and experiences. I feel more open to others when I can imagine their daily life and find a place of identification. That old saying, don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes, mental role play creates the medium for that practice. 
