On the Way Back Home

I realize I come to this blog less than once a month. For me, writing has always been something that has come naturally and, unfortunately, sporadically to me. I am home in Indiana for a month, and when I say home what I mean is the place I grew up, for home is really a thousand miles away now in Massachusetts. No matter how long I have been away, the midwest will always fill that space in my body that longs to smell rich black earth, know wide open sky, feel the singing sands of Lake Michigan under my feet. As I drive past the old shotgun barn on Sidewalk Road, the lone shady Oak tree in Dogwood Park, or the 1933-34 World's Fair Homes slowly rotting and succumbing to the lake, I will feel the familiar tug of nostalgia for that teenage girl with her smalltown roots and big dreams.
I have always desired to know what people think of as "home." For some, it's an open road and gypsy blood and for others it's the comfort of having stability. I struggle with the idea of home, always have, and I think it will be a lifetime of discovering for me and I may never come to a personal definition. My daughter is two years old now, and she will grow up knowing a different childhood than I had. She will grow up flying in airplanes every 8 weeks, knowing the big skies of Indiana and the quaint New England stone walls that line the back roads. I cannot help but wonder what her definition of "home" will be.