Home Is a State of Soul (and Other Musings from the Window Seat).
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As we begin our final descent into Los Angeles, after 24 hours of chasing the light of day, dancing backwards through time, I gaze out the window. This is my favorite part.
I love the way we hover, just above the sea of puffy cotton-ball clouds, the horizon-line right alongside, and then as we plummet down, my ears clog up and we are inside those once impenetrably viscous clouds. Finally, as the plane swoops left and right and down just above the city, the pink and orange light of morning fills the cabin, bouncing off the plastic parts of the vessel and onto the eager faces of its passengers.
I love how, from right here, above it all, everything seems so calm, so beautiful, so connected. Little roads filled with little cars driven by little humans living, breathing and creating together.
I am going to be okay, I think.
Astronauts, when asked about space travel and cosmic adventures to the moon and beyond, affectionately refer to the feeling of gazing upon earth from a distance — the overview effect — as the most profoundly moving aspect of their otherworldly experiences. They speak of a sudden self-reflective state of awareness, a sense of wonder, bordering on bewilderment at the simultaneous beauty and fragility of our Earth.
The incredible miracle of this planet, so perfectly positioned among the stars as to support life. Life so stunning, so vast, so magical, and so intrinsically connected to a higher power, an energy, a life-force (insert whatever name you give this) it leaves you speechless, in awe.
Flying across the world, from Bali, through Sydney, and into my hometown of Los Angeles, I experience this same sense of calm wonderment. All the notions I’ve held, good or bad, of this place, which for the greater part of my 25 years I’ve called home, simply melt away in this moment.
I left six months ago in pursuit of expansion, of experiences new and scary and uncomfortable that would stretch me. I left home. And now, looking down at this city, I realize I feel absolutely no ownership over it. I look at it with the new eyes of the young Kiwi girl in the seat next to me who, with her family, is coming to America for the first time to go to Disneyland.
An awareness of this stunning city, unique and flawed and waiting for me to explore it, hits me for the first time in my life. It hits me, peering in from above, that I am not what happened to me here.
Every heartbreak and every first kiss, along with every scraped knee and any accolades or achievements, everything that happened in this place over the years, is no longer tied to it.
Now I can look at it in excitement, in awe.
Because home isn’t where you live or where you love or even the house where you grew up. And as much as I’ve equated home to the fragrance of a family come together around the dinner table, or the feeling of a warm towel fresh out of the dryer, as much as I’ve attempted to build a four-walled fortress out of the people I love, now I know better. I’ve expanded.
Beyond plaster, possessions and pleasantries, there is a place you always have the key to enter. A place you can always come back to, you can always lay your head at night and you will always be loved.
Home is your ancient soul, the treasure chest of gems in the form of wisdom, talents, personality traits and lessons learned, that you’ve carried from lifetime to lifetime.
Home is the sensation of your feet rooted into the earth — sand, soil, or sod.
Home is the resilience of your forgiving heart. Home is your capacity to forgive yourself and forgive others again and again.
Home is the flaming loyalty to your tired heart to say No, to say No more, when enough is really enough.
Home is the strength in your softness, and the softness in your strength.
Home is your very human hurting, and your incredibly otherworldly ability to transcend it.
Home is recognizing your own breath in the whisper of the wind through your hair, your own breath breathing with the trees, your own life in all life forms.
Home is the smile of a stranger on the street.
Home is the last thing you tell yourself before you fall asleep at night.
Home is the grace of blinking your eyes open and taking your first sleepy, stretchy breath in the morning.
Home is the way you curl your feet around each other when you make yourself comfortable in a bed of uncertainty.
Home is the voice inside you that gently whispers There, there when you have been bruised and burned and continue to choose love anyway.
Home is every time you choose love anyway.
Home is the part of you that believes in magic against all odds, the inexplicable, irrational, illogical, bewildering childlike wonderment at the miracle of life.
Home is the part of you that believes in magic because you are magic.
Home is the way you walk into a room. Home is your essence, your signature scent, your saunter.
Home is you high on you. Home is you possessed by your highest self.
Home is the part of you that remains still, unchanged, quiet when the rest of the world spins madly on around you.
Home is your warm skin and your glistening spirit after a good shower.
Home is you bare to the world, you standing in the light of your naked truth, imperfections and all.
Home is the glitter in your eyes when you talk about the things you love.
Home is the way your heart flutters when someone you love says your name.
Home is the part of you that is always in pursuit of your heart’s wildest dreams.
Home is the compass of your being, the rudder of your soul, always pointing you to your true north.
Home is the knowledge, the inner knowingness beyond words, that you can bloom wherever you may be planted.
Home is knowing you are already home.
Home is knowing you will always be loved. Because home is knowing you are love.
Home is a state of soul.
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Megan Shaina Bakva is an old gypsy soul with a deep affection for the moon, magic and mystery, and an unshakable conviction that everything is conspiring in her favor. A West Coast native, she draws as much inspiration from long drives down Pacific Coast Highway with too loud music and wind blowing kisses through her hair as she does from sitting in yogic stillness, breathing deeply and writing soliloquys of desire behind the black curtains of her eyes. She counts her empathic sensitivity and proclivity for wearing her heart on her sleeve among her greatest friends along her journey to dance through the depths of her simultaneous light and darkness. She invites you to howl with her at into the ether and follow her day-to-day musings on Instagram.
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