I WEPT.  I WAILED.    

May 31st the moving van pulled away from my Whitefish house.  Karen, my sweet friend, started cleaning and I, without a look back or a twinge of regret, wearily climbed into my '87 Vanagon full of plants and some 'last stuff' and headed south.

It was so easy.  It was so nonclimatic.  Just another drive towards Kalispell.

I was heading 'home.'

No bells or whistles.  No breaking out in song.  No jivin' in the car seat.

The most natural drive in the world.

I stopped in Missoula at the Good Foods store and picked up some healthy treats for dinner on the road.  It started pouring, thundering.  "It's okay,"  I thought, "I'm only going as far as Darby.  Not over Lost Trail Pass tonight where it could be snowing."  My VW was pretty loaded and I didn't want to tax it or me at our ages.

Only had an hour and a half more to go….maybe two with all the road work.  Then I could eat and go to bed.  

I don't remember when I have been so bone weary.  So utterly physically and emotionally exhausted.  

(Well, actually…yes, I do.  It was during my initial separation from my husband at the beginning of our divorce process.  I was teaching high school. So exhausted that I would sleep under my desk during lunch and prep period just to keep going.  That was in 1986.)

So.  Not this tired for twenty-five years.

But.

I was heading 'home.'

I pulled into the sweet little individual cottage I had reserved in Darby.  Still pouring.  Grabbed my food and small bag and went in.  Ate.  Happened to catch a new episode of Glee…very fun.  Then crashed.

Awoke early with yet again some recurring diarrhea and upset stomach which I had been attributing to an incredibly stressful month trying to cope with discovered mold during my house inspection (the dryer vent had fallen off the pipe in the crawlspace creating a perfect petri dish all winter!), fearful the buyers might change their minds, worried of the domino effect with the condo I had committed to buy in Idaho should that happen, the coordination of Montana closing date with the moving van with the closing in Idaho. 

Craziness.  

I 'knew' this move had to be now or never if I was going to have the energy and stamina for risk taking.  I 'knew' even if I moved now there may be a price to buy.

The body.  It usually seems to be our physical health that pays that price, yes?

Ate a banana slowly, cautiously, tentatively.

Lost it just before starting out.

But. 

I was heading 'home.'

In the five years I lived in Montana I would always take this route if heading south anywhere so that I could drive through, and sometimes stay in, Ketchum,  where I had lived for 20 years, 20 years ago.  Where my heart has truly been ever since.  Where I hadn't wanted to leave after my divorce and yet knew I must.  'Life' was calling me for new experiences, new growth.  The unknown adventure.  My next step.

So traveling south on 93 to Idaho one must go over Lost Trail Pass.  Not an easy pass from October to June because you could hit snow and ice unexpectedly and it  has a steep grade and elevation gain both sides.  This day was turning out clear and that would not be a problem for which I was grateful being in my faithful yet old VW.

The Montana/Idaho state line is at the summit of this pass and in times past dropping over to the Idaho side and most especially catching the first sight of the waters of the north fork of the Salmon River, I would mostly deny that my heart always leaped and I felt an emotional reaction.  I would just appreciate the state change and keep driving.

But.

This day.

This day was different.

I was heading 'home' and somewhere in my body was the cellular, even molecular, knowing.

At the first sight of the small rushing winter melting Salmon River...I cried out.  

My mouth simply opened and a wail burst forth.  I started spontaneously weeping.

Neither was to be voluntarily stopped or lessened.  I pulled over two or three times thinking that might help.  It was temporary.

Until I saw a hillside of purple lupine.

Until I saw my first prairie dog.

Until I saw golden mules ear.

Until I smelled the sage.

Until I saw a once visited camping site.

Until I saw a long forgotten memory in my mind.

What I saw I was.  

I wept.  I wailed.

Unceasingly the forty miles to the town of Salmon.

I pulled myself emotionally spent from the van to get fuel.  Rushed instead inside where I vomited and had diarrhea…tricky choices occurring.

Bought a coke hoping to settle my system, fueled the van and somehow continued driving.

It is another three hours from there to Ketchum.  And.  Time seemed nonlinear.

I really cannot explain what was occurring for me, to me and yet, simultaneously, not me.   A catharsis not experienced since some intense personal workshop processing nearly 20 years earlier.

I felt like my DNA was remembering where I was supposed to be.  What I was supposed to be.  Where I naturally syncopated with the energy.  Where my vibration was matching the vibration of my 'right place.'  

It was like my body was throwing off, getting rid of anything that wasn't truly 'me.'  But also like there was no me, and everything was me?

In that three hours, my weeping, wailing episodes unexpectedly surfaced until that episode seemed over, that memory, that grief, that sorrow, that fear, that regret, that relief, that joy was processed???

Twenty years of living, twenty years of 'paying due diligence', twenty years of karma, twenty years of …..what?

...before I could come back 'home.'

The grief.  The pain.  The relief.  The joy.  The gratitude. 

Seemed intrinsically and equally exquisite.

Was 'home' just simply coming to my true self?  A recognition?

What is 'home' really about?  Metaphysically?  Karmically?  Geographically?  Historically?  Spiritually?

I don't know if I will ever really truly understand my experience.

It was powerful.  It was real.  It was ineffable. 

The best I can express is that "home and who/what I am" reunited after a long, even somewhat, unconscious separation.

I am deeply humbled.

And deeply grateful.

To "be" who/what/where home is.