Nov 12, 2008
Los Angeles, Ca
I have been having much trouble with the concept of home of late as you may know. There is desire to not just see the world, to go to some of the most outer edges. Tibet, base camp of Mt Everest case in point. The top of the world! Now its the end of the world, Patagonia.
Ironically, few days after I returned from Argentina, the Patagonia catalog arrived at the house. I have never made any purchases from them before as I am far more of a fan of NorthFace products, but somehow, somewhere, they got my name and a catalog came.
The catalog have little essays inside with some great images accompany them about Chile, conservation in Patagonia and etc. There is this one essay by Jeff Johnson, titled “Home.”
“I had sailed from California to Chile, a four-month journey that led me far off the beaten path. An extended stay on Easter Island had been the turning point for me as I finally let go of the trappings back home – a slow and difficult process. But it was here, floating in a river on the every edge of Patagonia, that I realized home is not a physical reference to a specific place on earth but a boardening of the consciousness. Home is, after all, where you are.”
Yes, Home, maybe just that, where you are and nothing more. Not the trappings of cable TV or running water, not the smell of coffee or the warmth of your duvet. But home is the unspoken love in my mom’s hug or the embrace of a loved one.
I sometimes wonder if my desire to see the world, and the extreme ends of the world is not to somehow to have a peak inside our significance by seeing “…the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God.” as Thorton Wilder described in Our Town.
