When I was ten, my family moved from Hermiston, Oregon, from the only house I had lived in, from the only home I had known. I remember announcing, on the day we moved, "No matter where we live, I'll always think of Hermiston as home."

Why? I don't know. Partly true sadness at leaving, I'm sure. Fear of the unknown. Maybe just being a whiny kid, laying a guilt trip on my parents. To some degree, as I was vaguely aware even at the time, simply trying to make a grand statement.

Well! Since leaving Hermiston I have lived in 14 different towns, in 7 states and one foreign country. Only once have I returned to Hermiston as an adult; it has been decades since I spoke with anyone I knew there (apart from family).

I have, quite literally, moved on. Literally, but not fully. I haven't lived in that old farmhouse in more than 50 years, but it still lives on in me. I can picture every room. I still feel the warmth of the oil heater in the living room, still hear the wind whistling through the cracks. When I remember my childhood, I remember that place, that furniture, that stage where the drama took place.

Maya Angelou once wrote, "I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one's skin, at the extreme corners of one's eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe." My brother and I recently exchanged emails in which we rehearsed some of those dragons.

But Sarah Dessen sounds a more hopeful note: "Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go."   

- Bill