If you look deep enough you might find mixed into that basket of core beliefs you carry around the notion of home, at least that has been my recent experience. Home: a place of retreat, a safe and stable place, ideally a place of comfort. With less than one week before our departure we have emptied the house of all personal belongings except those we’re bringing with us on the road. Home as place, as an abode, has been self-consciously stripped from us. Truth be told, it’s a bit unsettling.  I like that the Old Norse word for home, “heimr,”  carries the meaning of residence, but is also the word for world. That seems especially fitting right now.

This notion seems to have settled on me with more import than on Carole. Recently, while discussing this with friends, she turned to me and said, “My home is wherever you are.” It was perhaps the sweetest thing she has ever said to me. “And besides, we’ll be towing our physical home behind us.” I can always count on her basic wisdom to set me on the right course.

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“In all likelihood, I will depart this earth in the same fashion in which I entered it: clueless, but adaptable. Well, now that I reflect on it, perhaps death, being the ultimate and final event, is by definition, a thing unadaptable. Yet I know of Buddhist meditators who plan and hope to be on the cushion practicing when death comes knocking. That seems an effort to adapt, if nothing else.”

This is an except from a recent essay published at Black Lamb. Click here if you wish to read more.

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As noted elsewhere, we’ve rented out our home here in Portland and will be living a full-time nomadic existence for the forseeable future. I’ll be documenting the adventure at our blog, The Airstream Diaries. Please check it out and subscribe if  you’d like to follow our ramblings. Thanks.