“Like many coastal species that begin life in the brown waters of Weeks Bay, I began my life on the shores of this tiny estuary. I grew up amid herons, egrets, baby crabs, shrimp and mullet with the dark-brown mud squishing between my young toes. The smell of the salt marsh filled my being and was imprinted on my soul only hours after I breathed my first breath.

I played under live oak trees heavily draped with Spanish moss and was nurtured by the bay as surely as it nurtures young marine life destined to swim out into the Gulf of Mexico when they are of sufficient size. And like the creatures birthed in the bay, I too moved away from its tranquil shores yet I will always feel the pulsation of saltwater in my blood like a magnet, drawing me home.”*

After we come into our body, our remaining time seems to be spent trying to find our way back..back to the place from where we came: salt marsh, mountain, prairie, beach, farm, city. Or something more? What is the pull we feel as we move through life? Is it calling us to a physical home? Is it calling us back to family? Or is it the metaphysical call that whispers to our heart and guides us to a deeper, more profound home–that inner place of stillness, of quiet.

The first time I moved away from home was when I went to Auburn University. It was a fantastic small town atmosphere rooted in a large university’s deep resources and programs. My mind expanded with new people, ideas, and experiences.

Through the years I moved back to the Alabama coast and away to places like Nashville, Atlanta, Greensboro, and Asheville. My time in Asheville was probably my most happy. I was living on a mountain in a beautiful chalet-type home and was fulfilling a dream I had since I was a child.

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to live on a mountain. In truth, it was a passion that filled me throughout my life. While my time there was only six years in length, during that time I made connections that launched my creativity and career as a writer and photographer. The particular mountain on which I lived connected me with a publisher, a friend who shared my passion for photography and graphic design, other friends who surrounded me with support and love, a co-author and mentor for other poetry/photography projects, music friends…soul friends.

And the mountain gave me more. It showed me how to expand and rise to heights within myself I had never been able to reach. When I first moved into my home there I felt myself really having to work to expand to be able to hold the energetic space of the home…and the surrounding mountains and sky. It was blissful there (except for the winters…and wind and snow…and ice). Snow and a tropical gal are not a good combination.

Years ago, when I was in my early thirties, I remember walking along the beach at the Gulf of Mexico and feeling strongly that I was supposed to be there even though I lived far away at the time. In my silent gaze over the water I opened my heart and expressed my willingness to serve. Softly, like whispers on the wind, I heard, You will know when its time to return. You will feel the call.

On April 20, 2010 I was in the Atlanta airport flying back from a dive trip to Curacao where I had been ‘unplugged’ for a week. I looked up at the television screen in the gate waiting area and saw the footage of the burning well, the Deepwater Horizon. You will know when its time to return. You will feel the call. The message returned in perfect clarity.

I returned to the Alabama coast one week each month for the first year after the oil spill and documented it through writing, photography and video. I wrote a children’s book about it and spoke to community groups. At some point, during that year of grief and sadness and heartbreak, I realized how much I missed the Alabama Gulf Coast.

My conditions for moving were these: Sell my mountain home at the listed price and do it within the first six months of listing it. And to move to Magnolia Springs, a beautiful community where I lived for several of my childhood years. My house closed two days before the six month contract expired at the full, listed price. I moved to Magnolia Springs and bought a sweet home nestled under live oak trees.

These two and a half years back at the coast have been a time of deep inner healing. For the first time in my adult life I was alone. Since I was twenty I had been in a relationship of some sort and so my coming home was more than a physical experience of relocating to the place of my birth, it was an invitation to come home to myself, to become acquainted with myself as an individual and not as someone’s wife or significant other.

Distractions are many in our lives…going to school or college, establishing a career, getting married, having a child or children, building a life…struggling in our own ways. Opportunities are given to return back to that place of inner quiet and knowing yet often the distractions keep the journey ‘home’ as a distant, longed-for event on a hazy horizon. But the invitation never goes away, it’s always open.

Today as I was cleaning my floors I went into a sort of meditative state as I mopped and realized I feel happy and at home. Not just in my southern cottage house, but within myself. Really happy, really content…at peace with who I am and my place in the world.

While making the physical move back to the place of my birth brought me home, I realized the true meaning of coming home was simply finding my true self amid shattered dreams, fears, successes, losses, accomplishments…finding wholeness, completeness in the dazzling array of distractions called life.

Do I want a loving partner? Yes. And I am happy without one. Do I want my work to find a bigger audience in the world? Sure. And I am content if only one person sees it…or if I gain something just from the creative process of producing it.

People…places…things do not bring happiness and contentment. These come when we find ourselves at peace with who we are and when we realize that life is a journey where we are continually coming home, discovering new inner spaces and expanding the possibilities of who we are and who we can become.

* Excerpt from Sharks On My Fin Tips: A Wild Woman’s Adventures With Nature by Simone Lipscomb published 2008 by Grateful Steps Publishing House, Asheville, NC. Available from Amazon or from the author (see the BOOKS page of this website).