Grounding

As I walked in the front door after a week in Canada, the dogs greeted me with great enthusiasm in what my son dubbed "a hurricane of dogs." But it wasn't until I'd been home for 24 hours that Underdog jumped up next to me on the sofa and rested his head in my lap. It was another 2 days before we fell into that easy intimate companionship we had before I left. I had meetings almost every night, and as soon as I got home my partner, who had been single-dad for a week while I was gone, met me at the door with his coat on, eager to get out of the house and be an adult for an hour or two. Coming home, it seems, is a process that is not finished when you cross the threshold.

I've been thinking about the relationship between "coming home" and "grounding." I often felt ungrounded while I was traveling, and called it homesickness, but it did not abate entirely even when I was back in my own nest. Ironically, it wasn't until we packed up for another week-long trip (evening meetings, work, school and Thanksgiving Intergenerational worship service finally behind us) that I finally started to settle in. Now I'm at my mom's house, living out of a suitcase again, but my family is all around me and I don't feel homesick at all.

What makes us feel grounded or un-grounded? What makes us feel at home even when we are on the road?