What does home mean to you, and how do you find your way there when you’ve wandered far from where you started?
You may notice that Friday Pause looks a little different this week. Today is a special day for me, for today is the day I begin to share with the world my new creative project Ruby Slippers (please do check out the site!). At its core, Ruby Slippers is a blog where I explore Dorothy’s ultimate conclusion in The Wizard of Oz that “there’s no place like home.” But it’s not a typical blog – it’s more like a six-month, self-guided journey to explore the questions “what is home?” and “how do I get there?” through blog posts, interviews, poetry, music, and book reviews, drawing on concepts from The Wizard of Oz.
Ruby Slippers has been a kernel of an idea for a long time. When I was a child, my parents will tell you that I watched The Wizard of Oz every day, so the story must have been imprinted in my brain, shaping my subconscious beliefs about the world. As I grew up and began wandering further and further from my own geographic home, the themes in the story became even more present for me. Whose path (yellow brick road) was I walking? What does the Emerald City represent to me? If I feel discontent, does that mean I need to go back to Connecticut, as Dorothy went back to Kansas, or is there a different way to define the concept of ‘home’?
Over the past year, with the gentle encouragement and support of a group of amazing women called the Sisterhood Circle, launched by my friends Jenny, Alexia, and Raluca, Ruby Slippers began to take proper shape. First, the content tumbled out of me (it’s about 80% written already). Then, I met an amazing designer who has done a fabulous job with branding, illustrations, and website design. Then, my friend Jackie encouraged me to aim bigger and find ways to build a community around this topic. I’ll officially begin posting entries on April 16, but I am so excited about it that I couldn’t wait until then to start sharing the site. There is a link on the home page if you’d like to subscribe and follow the journey – I promise that Ruby Slippers won’t take over Friday Pause.
This week’s poem, another one by Mary Oliver (she’s just so on point for me right now!), describes the journey I’ve been on over the past year as I’ve birthed Ruby Slippers. It also represents my wish for all people and the goal of my blog – that you also have the strength to pry yourself free of others’ expectations and discover the comforting company of your own inner voice, a voice that propels you down your own unique, beautiful path.
