Sitting here in my hotel room in London, nearly three weeks into a five week tour, I’m contemplating different conversations I’ve had with several close friends over the past few days regarding the concept of home, since most of my life is spent on the road. Some of these friends have a similar life, and others don’t, but it’s clear that holding on to the notion of home as something far away awaiting our return makes it challenging to live fully in the moment wherever we are. Having spent so many years in my marriage living someone else’s life, constantly pulled out of my own present to realize his, I now really sink in and celebrate the richness of my life no matter where I am. I love my work, love being on the road, and have really come to release the idea of home as a place, instead I embrace the constant and continuous movement, connection, change, growth, adventure and passion as integral elements of my life blend. My awareness and acceptance of my life, and home, as it is, reminds me of the poem I wrote on the morning I filed for divorce last year, ultimately accelerating my journey to freedom and finding my own home within. As you read it below, consider what thoughts you can identify and release in order to embrace freedom and peace in your own life…

hourglass :: a last love poem

i loved you
as much as i could
as long as i could
hard as i could
hard as it was

steadily holding on
to the small piece of maybe
that was finally destroyed

i have done all i can

we came together
in our respective corners
at the bottom of an hourglass
with our own strengths
our own wounds

marriage is to be found
in the voyage
through the tiny neck
of this timepiece

crossing up and over
to the opposite quadrants
those qualities of the other
missing in ourselves
are to be absorbed
for each to become whole

my love
hard as we tried
we simply did not make it
through the passage
the wounds too deep
the rage too loud
the voice too silent

and though i love you
i cannot be
married to you
i lost myself
in the giving of everything
to you

i now know
heartbreak in one
is a pain
unable to be healed
by the other

we can only
heal ourselves

for months
i have been nowhere
and everywhere
wheeling my home behind me
into the havens of others
now i need to land safely
inside the space of my own

i was starving to death
before hunger finally saved my life
waking me to desire

and now you are
free from the wanting more
than i could give
and i will love you
beyond the wound

~ from Writing for My Life…Reclaiming the Lost Pieces of Me: A Poetic Journey by Nancy Levin