My Journey "Home"~ Through the Lens

This has been a rough week. Well, it wasn't so bad when we went to visit my family on Monday. It was a lovely day that started off with a beautiful sunrise sky filled with pinks, lavender grays and citrus burning oranges, as you can see to the right. I took my camera along for pics of my family of course, but I caught a lot of beauty in nature as well. This shot was taken just before we left out house that morning around 6:30am or so. I usually catch my breath at seeing nature unfold before my eyes, but to capture it on film humbles me and I thank the heavens for such an opportunity.

The sky directly above the car before we left the house was like cotton balls rolling across the sky, the pink tint reminding me of calamine lotion, leading me to ponder if the sky had poison ivy. LOL

Or if it had a hankering for cotton candy. Soft and transparent, sweet and satiny. If I could have reached up far enough, I could've imagined plucking it from the heavens to have a taste, the fluffy texture melting right on my tongue.

Everywhere I looked, I heard little gasps escape me. I couldn't believe what a gorgeous day we'd gotten up to or what a lovely day it would be.

Riding down the road away from home proved to show off more eyecatching arrays of the fabric makeup of the sky.

Some reminded me of ribbons and courdorouy, rippling across the sky. The shifting strands, the way the hidden globe beyond the horizon illuminates different layers. It was absolutely awe-inspiring. That touch of beauty...that touch of grace, in a world where we take so much for granted and forget about the small things as well as the important things.

Some, like silk, a bright thin blade slicing across the sky leaving a deep gash, opening it in golden rays of irridescent sheets, blanketing the morning in softness and sensuality. Tendering the heart and lightening the spirits. Deep breaths and fresh air, cool breeze blowing in the window, wheels speeding us along toward the place I called home for 26 years of my life. The place where my roots run deep and my surroundings are so familiar I could find them in the darkness before the light.

But then I saw, as I've always referred to them, "the fingers from heaven." Those rare times that the sunlight breaks through thick dark clouds and shoots of glowing fingers aim down toward the earth, clasping us in the protective hand of all that was, is and will be. Clouds with silver linings indeed, power hidden behind shiny gray armor that looks as soft as flannel. It's as though we're being spoken to, not with words, but with visions you can behold with the naked eye and warmth, like a touch, not just upon your skin, but your heart and soul.

The day was spent enjoying time with my aunt and cousins and my grandmother, along with my parents and sister. And just like the day came in bright and exhilariating, it seemed fitting that when we headed home that evening, around 6:30pm, the high of my day was settling. There was a calm in heading back to the place I now call home with my husband and children, and the sky had softened, reflecting my mood at the close of the day and the end of my visit with my family, my touch of home base, my roots.

Fading into dark pastels, the night began to cloak us, wrapping us in the change of mood, and hiding the heaviness of my heart that I had to leave once again.

It's hard to live so far from where I grew up. I get melancholy and wistful missing "home" and for a 32-year-old wife and mother, it's absurd to think that I long for my hometown and miss it so much. I suppose it's hard though considering that I grew up believing I would NEVER leave and though I made the decision to do so, sometimes I don't think it has really hit me that I really did leave.

In some ways, my roots run so deep that I don't think I've ever left it behind. Not really. And I doubt I ever will. It's where I'm from, but more than that, it's where my writer's heart was born. And my writer's heart cannot forsake it's birthplace.