home of many homes

I am a traveler.  And I am home.  It has been about ten days since I took off from my newest home base of New York City, a home that I have dreamt of for years.  I have returned to a place that I now acknowledge to be the most normal part of my life, being on the road, being on tour.  Even though, I had not planned to be on this one and it came up last minute, immediately upon landing it was home.

I now find myself in another past home of Chicago.  Chicago was my first home on my own.  I moved here when I was 18 to attend college at Columbia College.  I can hardly believe that was eleven years ago!  I lived here from 1999-2003 as I worked my butt off in school and at the House of Blues Chicago, where I broke into sound and live concert production.

It is such an amazing feeling to feel at home in so many cities.  I forget that this feeling doesn't exist for everyone.  Even upon landing in India, for my first time, I had this feeling. I am grounded where ever I go, even when I don't no exactly where I am going.

Yes, being an avid traveler both for work and personally provides that for me, but I know that truthfully it is rooted inside me, this feeling of home.  It is the feeling of being 100% comfortable and at one with who I am at any given moment.  It doesn't matter what my surroundings are, it doesn't matter what language is being spoken, what type of music is being played, what the dress code is.  I am me.  I no longer have that feeling of having to prove myself.  I no longer have that feeling of wanting to be liked, of wanting to be loved.  Of course, I want to be liked and of course, I want to be loved, but to accomplish that I merely get to be me and love who I am being.

Along with the feeling of home.  I really see each person whose path I cross as family.  That is what I project onto the world.  I am safe wherever I am.  I am taken care of wherever I am.  I am loved wherever I am.

I am grateful for all of life's experiences.  What is this life for, if not to experience it, to be open to it, to be with it?  I don't know what happens when my time here ends and I don't know when that time will come.  So, I choose to be in this vast home of mine.