2. The Problem of Home

My home is not the road.

I mean, I know the ultimate answer. But knowing the ultimate answer does me no good right now. Maybe in forty years. Maybe tomorrow. Not now.

My home is eternal communion with my Lord and with my brothers and sisters. When a place and time on earth feels like home, I know that the feeling is a shadow, a foretaste, of real home. We never find our way home in this life. And we never stop looking.

I know that.

I have lived in places that felt like home and I have lived in places that did not. Wander back through my memories with me. The first place I can remember feeling at home in was 1244 College Avenue, Claremont, CA. I lived there in 1967. I've driven past the bungalow recently; it still looks the same.

We lived in two different houses in Rialto when I was a kid. Neither of them felt like home. The closest I felt to home in Rialto was in my tree house, in the eucalyptus in the back yard.

In 1979 I worked at Disneyland. Just for the summer. I knew all the ins and outs. Where the break areas are. Employees-only shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland. The restaurants that no one knows about. Where the barbershop is. When I was working at Disneyland, I was living with Dan and Steve in an APT upstairs from a chiropracters office in Ontario, CA. It does not make any sense, but Disneyland felt like home. The APT never quite did.

The next place that felt like home was a cabin in the woods on the banks of a river in Felton, CA. I lived there with Marty, who is really home now.

Actually, my home in those days was quite large, for it encompassed all of Santa Cruz from the Aptos Twin to Farrell's Donuts. That era lasted from 1980 until 1985. That was the last place that felt like home.

No, that was the last place I lived that felt like home. I've never lived in Minnesota. I have visted several times. I remember being surprised by the feeling the moment the plane touched down at MSP on my first trip in 1990. This is home. The feeling has wafted over me on each trip since.

For five and a half years I have lived in Tucson, Arizona. I like it here; I'm happy here. For twelve years before that I lived in Silicon Valley. I was happy there also. Neither place ever felt like home.