This Must Be the Place

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

As I write this, there is a mini-movie playing in my mind:

A turtle pen, boxing gloves, a worn flag, callused hands, the sound of waves crashing on the beach, a makeshift baseball field, the smell of salt marshes and fresh cut grass, a nearby lighthouse, a Del’s Lemonade truck, fishing boats returning from sea.

This is my childhood home. I can conjure the sights, sounds and emotions in an instant, almost as if I was standing there.

Geographically, this home of yore is a small fishing community with a large public beach in Narragansett, Rhode Island. In the summer, it’s marked by the bustle of beach goers and steady rhythm of fishermen mending lines, preparing bait and unloading their catch.

In the winter, by contrast, it’s cold and gray. Tourists go home, bars and ice cream stands shutter, and the fishing community quietly continues its work.

Philosophically, it’s a place of hard work and hard-earned wisdom, of early risers and early bedtimes, of loud laughter and appreciation for simple things.

In this fishing community, the idea of coming home is not abstract. It is visceral, precious and habitual. Leaving home for dangerous work offshore is a necessary part of life. Surrounded by rolling and sometimes violent seas far offshore, I would dream of fresh cut lawns, turtle pens and lighthouses. Returning to port safely was a sacred thing.

This vivid memory of home has stayed with me for decades. It has at times prompted me to wonder: What exactly is home? A physical structure? A feeling? A set of values? A shared history? A life’s work? A family? A dream? A feeling of safety? An endless search?

As leaders and humans, I believe we’re always leaving and returning home, physically, psychologically and metaphorically, like the fishermen I grew up with. Today I share my journey of coming home and what I’ve learned.

Wanderlust

Like many people, my 20’s were not primarily concerned with a concept of home or safety. Quite the opposite in fact.

In our 20’s, my wife and I lived in Rhode Island, Connecticut, D.C., New York City, London and Seattle. Call it wanderlust. Call it adventure. Call it exploration in search of knowledge and experience.

My heroes were adventurers and travelers. Kerouac. Kesey. Thompson. Wolff. Coltrane. Hendrix. Davis.

When my wife, kids and I landed on the northwest corner of the US twenty-five years ago, we felt like seafarers in a strange new land. An exciting new world unfolded around us. Snowcapped mountains, emerald forests, eagles, seals, coffee, rain, ferry boats. Little did I know this would become home.

In fact, I resisted this concept for years. Maybe we should move back east, I thought. Maybe we should move to San Francisco or Bend or Bellingham. Maybe we should live abroad.

Over the years something changed. We raised a family. We made dear friends. We became deeply involved in our community. We experienced loss. We fell in love with the mountains and ocean.

Naïve Melody

Home is where I want to be
But I guess I’m already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place

-Talking Heads, This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)

Maybe coming home is simply coming back to yourself. Maybe this is the journey we all are on. Maybe, like many of us, I needed to travel thousands of miles to return to where I was and know it for the first time.

The feeling of growing up in a fishing community set a high bar for me for the concept of home. The sights, sounds and feelings were so visceral and intense. I’ve been searching for it everywhere I’ve been.

My wife, as usual, arrived there before me. She said to me recently, with a smile: “I was patient for a decade while you figured this out.”

She did and I love her for it.

Recently, my wife and I decided to buy a new house two blocks from a wondrous 300-acre park we’ve spent the last two decades exploring. A quarter of a mile from where our kids grew up. A stone’s throw from the ocean.

It’s more than a place. It’s people. It’s community.

We’ll be a few blocks from dear friends. We’ll be in the small community that surrounded us with love when my wife was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 36. Our daughter lives nearby and we hope soon our son and his wife will be here too.

More broadly, we’re surrounded by the rugged snowcapped mountains we first discovered two decades ago. We’re in the city of Amazon, Microsoft, Nordstrom, Alaska Airlines, Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix and REI. We’re in a community we seek to support through my wife’s work as a social worker and my own work in non-profits.

Years after leaving my beloved fishing community back east, years after ocean swells, salt spray and sea legs, it feels like I’ve come home.

And maybe -- like T. S. Eliot says and my wife knew -- I was already there.