Home is where the heart is....

I had the opportunity to take a quick trip to visit my family in AZ at the beginning of June. It was very quick (just the weekend) but it gets harder and harder to be so far away. I went by myself. Thank you so much Julie, Jasmine and Michelle (the best Mother-in-law and sisters-in-law a girl could have). Thank you Jake for letting me ditch you for a weekend. I've been thinking alot about my visit and some feelings that came to mind.

I love to look out the windows as the plane decends into Phoenix. Mountains! Oh how I miss them. My heart swells up and somehow I feel protected. As the plane was about to land, I found myself tearing up and getting very antsy. I'm 33 years old but I wanted to see my Mommy. :) The people around me probably thought I was on drugs I was tapping my leg so furiously.
Distance does not make the heart grow fonder...Shakespeare was seriously mistaken. A synonym for fond is tender. That is exactly what happens to the heart, it becomes tender. The distance make the heart tender and makes the soul appreciate what is there.

Driving to Thatcher from Mesa is actually one of my favorite parts of the trip. (Most people will tell you this is the worst part...) Again, I love the mountains and all of the saguarro cactus. when I was younger and we took road trips to Mesa, my dad would always tell us stories and legends about the cactus. Apparently there was an old indian legend that said the saguarro represented the chief. The arms represented how his wives. If she was a good wife, the arm was pointed to the heavens, if she was a bad wife the arm pointed to the ground. The best part of the drive is when we drive past Pima and head into Central. The view of Mt Graham is awesome and I know I'm almost there.

A few days before I left WI my dad was telling me some things about Thatcher to which he said, "You'll just have to wait until you get home to see." I giggled and thought about that. Somehow, Thatcher will always be my home. No matter how old I get or how far I move away. A piece of my heart....no of my soul (yes we are entering cheezy territory...it's my blog..) still resides there. But, how can I call WI my home if I still have a home in AZ. So, since I left I've tried to figure out this conundrum. Can we really have more than one home? Once you leave, they say you can never really come back again. I recently came across a quote from Maya Angelou that said, "You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

She pegged it just right. I will always have a 'home' in AZ. My memory is complete with the familiar sounds of birds and frogs (yes they are different from the ones here in WI), the smell of the rain (again...different) and the feel of the air (I don't think anyone would disagree that the air is different...). As Jenni is now getting ready to leave AZ (have a safe trip), she asked me how could I ever leave because she was going to miss it so much. I told her that I've missed it every day since I left.

What I have realized, with a bit of help from Ms. Angelou, is that I have never truly left.