It takes the unfamiliar to help us recognize what is home.

And that home is built, not forced or simply accepted.

So we inhabit, taking risk and looking for anchor.

And that anchor drags along the floor until we feel it catch.

Only to hear it scrape again as it chips away our relief.

So we float on, riding the tide in and out, in and out.

We wait, we wait, we wait.

And just before we dive in, we feel it catch again.

We dismiss, we disbelieve, we distrust.

Because before we have been disillusioned, diluted, deluded.

Uncertainly, we look out of the corners of our eyes at what we wish to stand firm.

And it does.

And it does not move.

And we build.

And we have our home.

And we have our loves.

And we have our little ones.

And they learn to trust the anchor.

And they learn to love home.

Until, for reasons unknown, we feel the familiar wave.

And tearfully we learn whom home really was all along.

Knowing together we float on.

And they are forced to learn for themselves what it is to cast anchor, choose to inhabit, and risk looking for home.

While we must choose few words and launch them into their unknown.

Though we are to be close behind.

And we pray for peace to carry them, that they might return to carry us.

As we are reminded, for the thousandth time, that the tide comes and goes as it pleases.

And our bodies feeble and our minds fragile

Need to hear once again that home is with us and home is out there.

Because we were made for land.

And someday, we believe, we shall.