Ahhhh, home. There really is no place like home, is there? Sunday we arrived home from a week-long Spring Break trip to Washington, DC. It was a great week filled with history and art and making fun memories. And, as fun as it was, it was still so, so good to get home. So good to sit in my chair, sleep in my bed, snuggle with my pets. It was nice to visit the president’s home, but, fancy as it may be, it has nothing on my little home.

A few years ago, when we first moved to Italy and were in the first blush of a new adventure, we had this idea on the table to take a year off sometime in our future and travel the US. We thought we could live out of our camping trailer, homeschool our son, and go wherever the wind took us. I would photograph and blog. An internet connection, a few clothes and a map, that’s all we would need, right?

Wrong. For me, at least.

What we learned in Italy, with all of the travel we did in those two years, is that we need a physical home base. I am a homebody. We all are, in my immediate family. I need to have my space and my time in that space. I need a place I can store and display the things I collect along my journeys. A place I can mess up and clean up and walk around. It doesn’t have to be a big space, but it needs to be a place with an address. A place I can return to after my adventures.

I was reminded of this, as I arrived home this week. It doesn’t matter where home is, but I need to have a place to return.

Home, again.