Going Home

Last night I called it an early night and decided to curl up and watch a movie that I feel most of us can relate to: Now and Then.  This was the movie made in 1995 with Rosie O’donnel, Demi Moore, Christina Ricci, Melanie Griffith and a ton of other well know actors and actress’ including one extra crazy Cloris Leachman.  Remember when she got lost driving and ended up in the middle of an outdoor mall in Los Angeles?

Well the circular point that Demi Moore’s character makes in the movie is when she references Thomas Wolfe’s Novel, You Can’t Go Home Again. By the end of the movie she mentions that maybe old Tom couldn’t go home, but she definitely could.  That leaves the warm fuzzy in all of our hearts as then these four women go and play Red Rover, Red Rover with the neighbor children.  Really, what do they do with the baby that they’re holding two moments before in the tree house?

It really got me thinking though because I have gone home, and not close to home but I am home. Home, as in the middle of Wisconsin in a city of three thousand with the nearest large city over an hour away. As we enter the ninth month of Project Kinect, I find myself committed to being home for six months.  An opportunity popped up for me to make some money and get my savings account replenished before I continue on with whatever is next. 

Knowing that I am home through the winter scares me tremendously as well as excites me.  I get to reconnect with friends that I haven’t seen in extremely long times as well as get to know people whom I met this last summer.  I have full access to my family for the first time in years as well as to my best of friends like Dolly, April and Melanie.  I forgot the magnificence in having them at arms length away, despite that I currently do not have the transportation to get me out of the city. I’m working on that though so there are no worries.

The not having a vehicle does make me trapped a little but I need it.  Don’t we all need to feel trapped once in a while though? It forces us to know our boundaries and strengthen ourselves.  This makes us more patient, more flexible and less stressed.  Those are attributes that we all need more of these days.

As for being home in the winter and relating it to Thomas Wolfe, I think a big part of what he was getting at was when we leave home, being rural and on a much different pace than the metropolis we sought out, we can only go home once we have conquered the goals or reasons why we left.  If we do not accomplish these things, we come back a failure.  That failure then is open to criticism, ridicule and mockery.

Well I have not conquered my goals yet I don’t feel that I have failed either.  Where does that put me Mr. Wolfe? I wish you were around to give me your input.  What I do know though is that it will be a winter of opportunity.  Opportunity to focus on work that I have been wanting to finish and needs special attention to get finished; Opportunity to be there for my family and loves ones for a little while and opportunity to set the foundation for what is next.  I know now in my life what I want more than ever in any other time I have been alive.  To know what you want and know what success to you is and where your happiness comes from is power and that is all each and every one of us can really do in our lives. All this information gets filed under the header “Things Change” of course.

Where does this leave Project Kinect?  Project Kinect will continue on a similar path that it has been on.  It will be done through research, phone interviews, regularly volunteering here, short trips and the help of followers.  The most important aspect of Project Kinect is getting communities working together and redefining themselves.  This forces us to learn from each other, redefine community and continuously find common ground so that we can move forward positively and together.  That is why I continue to drive the WE ARE ALL INVOLVED campaign.  So as followers, please keep me informed on what is happening in your communities.  Let me know if you feel something you are doing should be part of the Monday Spotlight.  Let me help you get volunteers or whatever it takes to help get what your community is doing out there.   Project Kinect only works when people are sharing and inspiring each other.  

Right now, Project Kinect is only driven by me but I will hopefully soon form it into a full fledged nonprofit.  I am always open to suggestions so email them to me. Gregg@projectkinect.com

WE ARE ALL INVOLVED!