There’s nothing that starts a “welcome home” better than walking on to an airplane, hearing Hawaiian music and sitting in the purple throne that is going to actually take you home. As you sit and wait, people are talking and it’s pidgin. A broken up English that is a foreign language to some that you actually understand, that’s home. Seeing people you don’t even know but just look familiar because you know where they are from, that’s home too.  I took this picture today and I have taken it many many times in the past. It’s like seeing your best friend again after a long trip away.

Even after a long sleepless night, nothing warms my heart more than going to the one place that is my home, Hawaii. On my 10+ hour journey there’s a lot of time for sleep, sitting, and thinking. After a few weeks of being extremely busy doing who knows what, getting on the plane and heading home seemed so easy. I could instantly connect back to where I am from by taking myself there, something that isn’t so easy while I am away.

What is important to me between the actual trips home is the constant connection to home. Whether that means waking up and listening to local jams, keeping all of my desktop wallpapers on my computers different photos of Hawaii, or never changing my wrist watch to be in the right east coast time zone, I make an effort to be connected to home. This conscious effort is intentional because while being so far away I never want to lose that part of me. At times, living in New York could turn me into a completely different person. I can see how I can easily forget my roots, plant new ones, and probably never go home. But that’s not what I want.

For now I am away and my daily habits, communicating with my friends and family, and this plane are my connection to home. They are my lifeline. They keep me in the loop while I’m away. Today made me realize how easy it is to go home but it also made me realize why I am away. I’m gone to feel  that feeling. The one that made me so happy to see this plane, hear the Hawaiian music and see people I don’t even know speaking a language i actually understood. Being away makes everything that is ordinary, extraordinary and that is the best “welcome home” I could have ever imagined.