Coming home

You walk

Through the door

Not the same

As when you walked the other way…

Some days

over and over again

Through the same door

Not noticing the subtle changes…

A year,

Another year

And then you are this lumbering Animal…

From another country and culture

Your skin no longer your own…

And those on the other side of the threshold

They too have changed

Lounging over the edge of the couch

As easily as if it were a tree branch

Or slithering in and out of the tub

Like a snaking river that winds for ever

Through deserts and mountains

And concrete shopping malls

Circling In and out as if in a dance,

Now all in the same room,

Personalities prickle, then soften,

And ceremonial masks drop away

And the essence of being remains

No matter the miles travelled

Or boundaries crossed…

For the heart remembers

What is true…

(L. Harris)

A friend of mine shared this poem with me today. And I cannot tell you just how much emotion came over me as I read these words.

Firstly, sadness, as I remembered being broken and rearranged in China. As I remembered walking through the arrival gates at Auckland Airport a completely different 19 year old girl from the one I was when I walked through the departure gates just two months earlier. As I remembered the nights screaming and thrashing and crying for understanding, and not even knowing myself. And then, after remembering all of that, I remembered that I still feel like that most days.

Secondly, I felt completely humbled, as the realization came that I am, in fact, not the only person to have ever felt like this. As I realised that, if someone has put it into words so perfectly, then they must have felt it, struggled with it, cried out because of it, too.

Thirdly, guilt, in noticing that the person I possibly treated the worst, was the very person to share this poem with me.

But then, came thankfulness. Thankfulness that God chose me. Thankfulness that I was broken, because it meant I came out a better person. Thankfulness that I was saddened, because it meant I was touched. Thankfulness that I was humbled, because it means I don't have to struggle alone. Thankfulness that God chose the right people to put in my path, and that they certainly haven't left me hanging. And thankfulness for the guilt, because it means I am sorry, and that's good.

This poem was wonderful. It has a permanent home on my wall, next to the faces of my beautiful kiddies, and always now in my heart.