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In late 2012, I began a journey that would take me as far away from my home as I’d ever been. I started this blog to maintain contact with those I left behind. I wrote to keep my mind off all the unknowns I was headed toward. I wrote to keep my sanity. The blog for me was less of a journal and more of a touchpoint; a point of contact with what and who I knew to be real, even though that contact was temporal.

Two years and two months later, I have written 117 posts, viewed by thousands of people living in over 70 countries around the world. From Russia to Peru, Switzerland to Guatemala, Haiti to South Africa, somehow people found my stories or pictures and gave me a little of their time.

Quite humbling to say the least, and I am grateful; at a time when I felt a bit alone in the world, your visits and comments helped me feel connected.

As I watched the world break through to 2016, I thought a lot about what to write in my first post of the New Year. Something witty? Something profound? To be honest, I didn’t awake with hope and optimism and a fierce determination to abolish all my bad habits and acquire no new ones.

I felt bereft.

I feel bereft for this world I live in, where stories of terror and human and animal suffering are ever present, and escalating. I feel bereft for all the millions of living souls that have no place to call home. The simplest of things. Home.

Home is what we long for, or at least the illusory memory of home. It’s where we believe we are safe, we are loved, we are nurtured. It’s where we escape from to make our mark on the world and it’s where we retreat for sustenance and strength.

It’s a place we feel connected to, however temporary. It’s a place that grounds us yet sets us free. Where stories are told, lives are shared, and bonds are forged that will last a lifetime, whatever that lifetime may be.

And so my wish for 2016?

That home not be a battleground, that it isn’t just a dream or a memory. That those who are unintentionally lost find their way back. And that those who have had to leave their homes behind, find compassion and grace when they least expect it.

Homeward bound,

I wish I was,

Homeward bound,

Home where my thought’s escaping,

Home where my music’s playing,

Home where my love lies waiting

Silently for me.