"Feels like home to me..."

"A window breaks down a long dark street,
And a siren wails over my head.
But I'm all right, 'cause I have you here with me.
And I can almost see through the dark there's light.
If you knew how much this moment means to me,
And how long I've waited for your touch.
If you knew how happy you are making me --
I've never thought I'd love anyone so much...

Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I'm on my way back where I come from.
Feels like home to me, feels like home to me,
Feels like I'm on my way back where I belong."
- Bonnie Raitt

It was Saturday night and the blue, almost darkness of dusk was descending faster than I had expected.  We live in the city and quite often my husband and I walk through our neighborhood to the urban center where an active commercial, cultural and social life still bustles long after they roll up the sidewalks in the suburbs.  We love it.  We love the ebb and flow of humanity, the way the sound of conversation and laughter float out of restaurant doors and briefly meeting the eyes of strangers with a smile as we pass one another on the street.

But this past month my husband has been out of town on business and I have been taking our walks alone.  For the most part my walks have been in during the daylight hours.  This particular Saturday, however, I was feeling a bit housebound.  I had already taken a walk earlier that day and I wanted more.  I wanted to feel connected to a larger sense of community. So I bundled up against the early December chill and ventured out again just before sunset.  It was glorious.  The air was clear and cold without being bitter and walking was refreshing.  I felt brave as I walked briskly along city streets.  I stopped at our favorite coffeehouse and sat under a canopy of stars writing in my journal, sipping hot chocolate and listening to folk music…much longer than I had expected to.  By the time I realized how late it was the air had turned bitter and the streets were lonely as pedestrians found warmth inside galleries and restaurants, escaping the cold. 

My walk home was invigorating, but I started to feel the emptiness of the streets even more than the sudden drop in the temperature.  Walking alone in the city is a very different experience when café tables crowd the sidewalk, conversation mixes with the sound of traffic, and music drifts out from open doorways.  On a cold December night fellow pedestrians are huddled beneath hoods and heavy jackets that mask the smiles I hope are there, the winds causes streetlamps to swing eerily in the dark casting strange shadows that weave and duck along empty brick walls, and sirens wail through the hardscape of urban asphalt and concrete. 

As I made my way past storefronts I noticed for the first time how many darkened alleys shot back from the main sidewalk.  Neighbors that normally greeted us as we walked by from their front stoops were absent, and in their place were the neighborhood's homeless.  As I passed one building at the far end of "the Loop" a huddled figure slipped out from a doorway and began following me.  All of my antennae went up immediately.  My hand balled into fists in my pockets and my pace picked up.  But his stride was longer than mine and within moments he was only a few steps behind me.  Sirens were wailing a few blocks away and the big plastic Christmas bells strung across the street were swinging wildly overhead.  My heart was beating and my thoughts were racing.  What would I do if he came up behind me and grabbed me.  Suddenly taking a walk after dark in the city seemed foolish and dangerous. 

This was the very moment of divine intervention. 

Out of the blue the thought came, "Kate, remember…this is your neighborhood, these are your neighbors, you love it here, this is your home." 

God spoke to me and my heart was at peace.  I needed to feel His touch, hear His voice, be reminded that He had brought me to this neighborhood, he had sent me here to love and be loved, and had never left my side.  I was where He wanted me to be.  I was among my brothers and sisters in Christ. 

My pace slowed, my heart calmed and by the time my neighbor reached me I was so ready to say, "Hi, isn't it a beautiful night to be walking?"  It was then that I saw the face under the wool cap, inside the hooded sweatshirt…the warm brown eyes, the beautiful smile.  "Yes," he agreed, "just beautiful."  His stride was long and in seconds he was well out in front of me.  I watched the strong back of my neighbor, huddled against the wind, growing smaller by the moment and sent up a prayer of gratitude for God's mercy and grace. 

Wherever He is, I am home.
Kate

Update: Since posting this story in 2007, Edwina Hayes recorded this lovely version of"Feels Like Home" for the 2009 film "My Sister's Keeper". Sam sent it to me and I thought I would share it here...enjoy.

with Love, .
Kate

i live in the city

I live in the city....
with its sounds
that start before dawn and
remind me that I
am not alone

this city is a living
palpating
body of life

i breathe differently here
my inspirations come
from a place of
deep
companioning with
neighbor
driver
man on the street
who pushes a
shopping cart filled
with
his possessions
a rolling home
away
from convention
and conformity
and sometimes
his choice

i wake when they wake
dumpsters
car doors
those metal brushes
from the street
cleaners
calling me up
from the
dark velvet
dreamy
place
I am floating in...

i wake even before the
sound of my neighbor's
screen door
snaps me forward into
light and
the laughter of two
graduate students on the balcony
next door
with  French press coffee and
hand thrown mugs
discussing kafke
and kierkgaard over
croissants and jam
remind me that
i too am a thinker
with
worlds to
consider

there is no
slipping back into
dreamy
escape here
the world
calls out to us as healers
to join in the
march
to
check in and
engage with humanity's
surging forward
into
global self-actualization

one cannot remain
passive here
indifferent to
the
injustices of segregation by
color
economy
property-ownership and
labels
brands
or
hood ornaments

this is a body
in which the hand and
eye must
cooperate or
perish

this  is a body...
an organism
that must
choreograph its movements
so effectively
so efficiently
that
car and pedestrian
privileged
and needy
young and
wise
man and woman
gay and
straight
can share a blood stream
an immune system...
air...
in peace

i live in the city now
i am neither hand
nor foot
i am a mental molecule
eager to
enter the
heart and
be
re-oxygenated
by Love's
demand
for compassion
humility
grace....

self-surrender
for the
good of
the whole

I live in the city
now and
the park
wild with zoo
and
beautiful in bloom
rich with
museum quality views of
history and a
painter's brush stroke
along the face of
a child's dream
color
my
life with
new purpose
and
opportunity

i have a
body that wakens
with each
stranger's smile and
weeps
at the drop of a
dime
from the fist of
a child into the
cup of the
blind

I live in the
city now
and
my heart
beats
to the
sounds of
reggae and
lullabies from the
window
across the
park
where a mother
holds her infant and
dreams the dreams
of mothers
everywhere

in cities
villages
the steppes of Mongolia
the arid caves
the wartorn reaches
the rice fields
and deforested amazon...
the rural,
the suburban,
the urban
the kingdoms
and emirates and farms
and communes...

the dream that
her child
could one day
be the master of his own heart
the leader of his village
his brother's keeper

i live in the city now
where
the body of
life
pulses
with
the need
to
care
the need to be
needed
... to
love


kate