So yes, I am watching Dorothy’s adventure. How could one not? Here we have a Kansas girl who finds herself in a strange land filled with unique inhabitants. Making friends with a few misfits on her journey and quest to get home. In the end, she finds not only her strength, her concerns for friends more than self and that all important, there’s no place like home.
Something I too, had to learn the hard way. Having grown up in a slightly secluded area with a protective family I wondered, what was out there. We were miles outside of the nearest town, neighbors were few. As a young adult, I wondered what I had missed out on, living here. That wonder and curiosity lead me to do some stupid things.
Those stupid things, took me away from this special place and into the town life I had wondered about. Newly married and struggling to find my stride. Six months in and what I had known early on was a mistake, now was dissolving around me. Trying to make it work did no good. In the end, I lost everything. Marriage, home, self-esteem all gone.
Returning to the dirt road, I was different, in my heart tainted. I found a job, then when I had the money, I found a place to live, again away from the dirt road. I was doing okay, saving money toward a more secure future. But I had not learned yet, the lesson that was mine. Finding myself in another relationship that ended up taking me very far from home. Louisiana might as well have been foreign soil, as far as it was from all I had known.
The differences in all areas amazing in my eyes. I had never seen a place with so much water, where mosquito trucks ran on a regular basis. The food delicious and the people beyond friendly. It was, but wasn’t home. A home I was so very far away from. The relationship I was in, was not good. In fact, it was abusive to the point that in the end, I actually planned and executed an escape. Taking only the clothing I could carry with me I caught a bus for home. Over twenty-four hours later, I was disembarking in my home town. Tired, weak and in need of healing in every sense and form.
Back on the dirt road I settled in once again. I found a job, I got a car, I was finding my rhythm. Within months, I had met the man I would eventually marry, settle down. We moved a mobile home onto the dirt road and began to live. When we found out our son was on the way, we purchased the home I had grown up in from my parents. I wanted my son to grow up here. I wanted him to know the magic, the peace the healing that is this place.
Since I have been back, I have fought cancer. My husband and I battled through various times of joblessness, financial worries, and his health issues. I lost my husband almost four years ago. I lost my job eight months ago. But this place, this little piece of land on a dead end dirt road, has the near perfect healing peace that eases the mind and comforts the heart.
Dorothy was right………there’s no place like home.
Words from The Dirt Road 