Behind the Puddle

There are places where you walk in and immediately know what to do. You know where to sit. Where the glasses are. Which door sticks. Which chair belongs to whom. Where the dog will probably be lying. You don’t need directions. Your body seems to remember the place before your mind has even thought about it. There are people like that too.

People around whom we don’t have to explain every part of ourselves. We don’t have to be interesting. Or cheerful. Or useful. We can show up tired. Quiet. A little grumpy. Completely unprepared to be delightful. And somehow there is still room for us.

Maybe that’s what homecoming really is. Not simply returning to a place. Returning to somewhere we don’t have to earn our belonging.

Behind the puddle, I have watched creatures return over and over again. The geese leave and come back. Birds disappear into the trees and return to the feeders. Stella and Stanley can be gone long enough for me to start wondering where they are, and then suddenly one is standing along the shoreline as though they never left. Pinecone disappears and eventually reappears, usually near food. No explanation. No announcement. Just: I’m back. I love those moments. Maybe because there is something comforting about return.

But October has been teaching me that return doesn’t always mean returning to exactly what we left. The landscape changes while someone is gone. We change too.

That’s true when we return to childhood homes. Old neighborhoods. Family gatherings. Friendships. Communities. Even relationships. We may recognize everything and still realize it feels different.

The house seems smaller. Someone who was always there isn’t anymore. The traditions have changed. The people have aged. We have aged. We come home and discover that home continued living while we were away.

Sometimes that’s painful. We want the place to hold still for us. To preserve the version we remember. But maybe homecoming doesn’t require everything to remain unchanged. Maybe it asks whether there is still somewhere within the change where we recognize ourselves.

I’ve been thinking about another kind of homecoming too. The one that happens inside us. There are seasons when we become so busy being what everyone needs that we can lose track of ourselves. Spouse. Parent. Grandparent. Employee. Caregiver. Helper. Patient. Problem solver. Responsible person. We carry roles for so long that eventually we may not remember who we are when no one needs anything from us.

Then sometimes something small brings us back. Music we haven’t heard in years. Something we used to love doing. A conversation where we laugh like an earlier version of ourselves. A place that makes our shoulders drop. A person who remembers us from before life became so complicated. Or maybe, unexpectedly, a chair on a patio overlooking a puddle.

I didn’t know when we built this patio that I was creating somewhere I could return to myself. I thought I needed access to the backyard. A comfortable place outside. Something practical.

Instead, I sat down. I watched. I became curious. I wrote. I noticed. And somewhere inside those ordinary days, parts of me that had become quieter began showing up again. Maybe that’s why this place feels like home in a way I didn’t expect.

It isn’t only where I live. It is somewhere I recognize myself. I think we all deserve places like that. They don’t have to be houses. Maybe it’s someone’s kitchen. A garden. A church. A workshop. A lake. A favorite chair. A friend’s couch. A familiar road. A conversation. Sometimes home is a person.

And sometimes home is simply the place inside ourselves where we stop performing long enough to remember: There I am. Behind the puddle, autumn has changed the landscape again. Leaves are falling. Visitors are changing. The view isn’t the one I knew in July. But when I settle into my chair and look across the water, my body knows something before I have to explain it.

I’m home. Maybe homecoming isn’t returning to what was. Maybe it is recognizing where we still belong in what is.