Being HOME

Being Home. What does that mean? It means knowing in your heart that this is where you belong right now.

I grew up in Auburn, WA in a little house my father built on "M" St. Definitely home to me as a child, it is where I felt safe but when I turned 21 years old, I couldn't wait to move to Seattle to attend Burnley Art School where, when I walked into the classroom and saw easels and all things art, I almost wept with the feeling of belonging. When I married, had children and moved to our 13 acre Vashon Island farm, it quickly became home to me. I remember sitting in the tall grass of one of the pastures feeling so happy that the farm was ours. We belonged there.

Now once again, here in Black Diamond, WA I have that blessed feeling of being home. There is no place I would rather be. I am slowly learning where rural roads go and connect. I know how to drive to Morganville and past the house where my Grandma and Grandpa Benedetti lived. I hold dear the memories of being "up the house" with my Italian relatives and remembering the sense of belonging with those people.

This weekday morning I attended Mass in the 1911 St. Barbara's Church in Black Diamond and then drove the short distance to the Black Diamond Cemetery. While I was there, I received a nice cell call from my daughter on her way to work. The nostalgic past and the present. The sweet, bittersweet and the difficult. I find perspective and comfort in being home.