What does it mean to be home, to feel at home, to have a home? I have thought a lot about the concept of home in recent months as I have sought, with the intensity of a scouting leader undertaking a harrowing expedition into unknown lands, to find a home of my own, of our own, in the Bay Area. Or perhaps more specifically, to find a house, a piece of land and a comfortable dwelling, that I and my husband could “forever” settle in and call our own.

I realize, whenever I look up to the mountains, to the trees and the sunshine, when I attend to the silent and not-so-silent natural world outside the boundaries of my self-contained body, new perspectives come to my mind. The swirl and sideways bends of the life that I inhabit almost seem to subside like calm winds after a storm. I am reminded that there is something beyond that which I perceive, a greater spiritual force at play in the world. And I am at the mercy of it.

I’ve come to realize that movement is an essential element to my happiness. While I have strong emotions that tie me to a sense of place and home, not a day goes by where I am not somehow moving — throwing myself out into the world to run, bike, walk, hike, and lately (thanks to the proliferation of electric scooters all over town) scooting! I recently got myself my own set of automotive wheels that, I confess, has brought me great joy as it now allows me to hit the road to just about anywhere there is a road.