Home Is Where Your Heart Is.

A few days ago, Holly over at 504Main posted a great post about returning home from a trip, asking where home is each of us? I thought it was an excellent post, a great thing to ponder, and I have thought of it frequently as I walked the beach this week on South Padre Island.

For me, there are two places that always, unequivocally, remind me of home: Dallas, and Waikiki beach.

Although I’ve lived in the same area of Houston longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my entire life (due to my husband’s job, and my mom living close by) Dallas remains my home base, and probably always will.

I was born in Dallas, went to middle school and high school there and most of my closest friends and family still live in that area. The second I cross the last hill of highway on I-45 in between Dallas and Houston, and the Dallas skyline comes in to view, I instantly feel at home.

I can drive nearly anywhere in that city and recall a memory, probably something that’s not safe to blog about since I lived there in my younger years . But wonderful, family and friend filled memories that I cherish hover all around the Dallas area.

My close runner up though is Waikiki beach, which I’ve thought of often this week.

The beach-the sounds, smells, texture, all of it-remind me of home, family, memories that I cannot entirely recall but I know are good. Oddly, it doesn’t really matter which beach I am at. To me, the beach feels like a familiar friend that I have missed and waited too long to catch up with.

The beach represents a sort of peace and calmness that I can not always understand or explain and, almost more than returning to my home base of Dallas, when I am on the ocean I feel like I’ve returned home.

I was only about 8 years old when we moved to Waikiki, but it was the last place my family lived together before my parents divorced.

I can barely tell you what I did last week. But, I can see just like it was yesterday, images of my brother and I at the beach, in the water with my dad. My dad would put me on his shoulders, and then we would try to put my brother on top of my shoulders, inevitably all of us topplling into the ocean.

Waikiki beach has a smell like no other beach I’ve ever been to. You can smell the saltiness of the ocean before you ever get in the water.

A few years ago, Robert and I took the kids to Waikiki for the first time.

My kids have been on swim team since they were about 4 years old-they are used to chlorine water.

It didn’t take long though for them to overcome the taste of Waikiki Beach.

Notice the face in the wave?

I remember that, as is typical with Waikiki, the beach was packed with tourists. But, over all those people, all the noise, I sat on the side and listened to my kid’s laughter as they let go of their fear of what might lurk underneath (which anyone would have, growing up around Galveston beaches) and took in the wonderous waves, splashing each other relentlessly, using their masks to peer with wonder at the clear ocean floor. They rode wave after wave, howling as they crashed into the shore, and usually an unfortunate tourist or two.

Ultimately, I believe Waikiki, and Hawaii, will always remain a part of my spirit.

I arrrived home tonight after a week being gone, a nice break from the normal work-family chaos.

As Holly mentioned in her post, we all have places that we consider home.

But arriving home tonight, I was reminded that beach or not, Spring, Texas has been my home for a long time, and will remain my home for many years.

Our house on the cul-de-sac, certainly needing work, and far from the fanciest, was of course lit up like a lighthouse. What else would I expect on a Friday night?

I honked the horn to beckon my car-unpackers and not only did my kids come out, but the normal friends came out as well.

There was the usual stack of sneakers, the unopened mail, and the ‘home’ smell that you only notice once you’ve returned home after being gone for awhile.

I loved being at the beach this week; reconnecting with my spirit.

But, I love being back home tonight just as much, Robert and the kids nearby, being back together.

Waikiki may have my spirit. But, this home has my heart. And I’m so happy to be here.

(PS…if I sound a little sappy, it’s really just pure fatigue due to the 10 hour return trip home with Pooter, the Mute, and ‘There is NO BUCEE’S AT THAT EXIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!’ Aunt Bonnie.)

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