WHAT IS HOME?

When we came to Malaysia, we bought one-way tickets. That was the first time we (or I) have ever done that. That felt strange and so open-ended that it was unsettling at first even as a peregrine soul. As the safety net of the clear return date or ticket does not exist, it is as if I am suspended up in the air swinging from one bar to another performing a simple trapeze except as a clumsy trapeze artist would. Feeling like I let go of one bar, but I have not yet grasped another.

After going on a few rounds of shopping spree from IKEA to Nitori (Japanese version of a small IKEA) to Daiso which felt strangely familiar, we have done everything we could have done to make our place our new home. At least for one year. The sense of “home” was important to us as we yearned to settle down as swiftly as we could, so we could gain proper bearing and support enough to branch out and travel. What happened next surprised us. Both of us missed home in Pasadena, our children, and even the physical neighborhood of Pasadena. During our 8 months of Asia excursion last year, the thought of missing home rarely entered our mind. Missing our children, yes. But not the physical home and its environment. This time was different. My wife curtly told me the other day, “I miss my walks in Pasadena.” I responded by letting out a drawn-out “Yeah,” and nodded while looking in the same direction as my wife.

There are lots of things to like here in Malaysia. I should like a lot of things as I have told myself and others many times before. The fact that I “should” is catching my attention. It is certainly not that I don’t like being here. We are grateful to be here, and we know we belong here now. We like being here and while being thankful, we simply miss Pasadena “home.” Both are true and I am holding them together today. It does not have to be one or the other. And I cannot foretell what next week or even what tomorrow will bring.

During our ramping-up process of coming to Malaysia, we have used both “home” and “base” imagery interchangeably when communicating with our family and friends. On closer examination, I am realizing that base generally embodies the idea that this is our launching pad or platform to do our ministry. After such excursions, we would come back to the base to get recharged, resupplied, repack, and hit the road again. While this is not untrue, I have also used the tender notion of home, that we are moving our home from Pasadena to Kuala Lumpur. I think I want this to be true, but it is not quite yet. Therein lies the quagmire and tension. I stumbled to process some of this reflection with my spiritual director quite accidentally. At one point, as he was summarizing our time together, he used the word base that caught my attention enough to further process with him. At that time, I shared with him that home now is where my wife and I happen to be together.

A few days have gone by. After some more reflection and probe, at a more foundational and existential level, I have embraced the fact that home is where my heart is. A journey with all the external stimuli and circumstances, braving through swift and untamable changes and curveballs not to mention all the emotional rollercoasters associated with them, in the end, is about arriving at our inner wisdom of what we have always and already known. We need all the externalities of life and new journeys to tell us what we have always known to be true. Unless we leave familiarities and knowns of life, we do not and cannot arrive at our true selves. We need the new to discover the old. All, invariably, leave to arrive.

During one of our group spiritual directions a few days ago, I facilitated using David Whyte’s poem, The Journey, not fully realizing the simmering effect on me later. Below are the third and fourth stanzas.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Then the last stanza.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

One of my routines has been the workout regimen every day in addition to my brisk morning walks. I have had to drive somewhere to do weight training all my life. Since moving in, the coolest feature is that the gym rests on the 41st floor (top floor) with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Kuala Lumpur city skyline. Next to the gym is the vast infinity pool. One does not have to love water to want to get into the hypnotic-induced pool. Since the glass is the only thing that prevents anyone from toppling over (and it’d be a long way down), it is not for the faint-hearted. I have been meaning to but have not yet dipped myself in the water.

Almost every day between 3 and 4 pm, I see twin boys, 3 foot nothing and probably barely 3 years old. Given the potency of the sun here, it is no surprise that they are covered from head to ankle with only their tiny milky faces, hands, and feet exposed. With the striped sailor-themed floaties that are as big as their petite bodies tied to their chests and back, their twig-like legs are happily and helplessly dangling on the water. The other cloudy day when one of them took off the hat, I could not suppress my chuckle. The bowl haircut was one of the most cartoonish haircuts I’ve ever laid my eyes on. It still makes me smile when thinking about the kid and the haircut. The twins look like adorable aliens bobbing around and giggling the whole time. Aliens because I can’t decipher what they are saying half the time grunting and shouting while not losing their smiles.

With my smile persisting, it dawned on me that they were “home,” home to themselves and home to the present moment. Their faces do not seem to show regrets of the past as well as worries about the future. The only commonality is now between past, present, and future as the past is a former now and the future is an imagined now. Past and future are mind derivatives and plays of the present.

Witnessing heaven’s inscription happens in real-time and in the present time that can trigger finding the one line that is already written inside us is the lesson of our lifetime. We venture out to the external world only to discover what is already in us. Thus, all must leave to arrive. In the end, perhaps, lessons from our arrival become so significant that we forget we even left until we have to leave again.

In summing up, home is where my heart is in the present moment.