Just Give Me My Own Bed.
On temporary tribes, Omaha Beach, and why home is where you finally exhale
Two weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to leave.
A new adventure. Out of the country. Out of the comfort zone. After the service and the celebration of life and the practical matters that follow a death — the notifications, the accounts, the paperwork that grief doesn’t pause for — it felt like exactly the right time to turn outward. To work on me, and where I am headed.
It worked.
A lively — and lovely — group of women came together for seven days touring northern France. From all parts of the country, with all types of backgrounds, interests and reasons for travel. We signed up as solo travelers and quickly became something else: a temporary tribe.
We dined and toured and rode and shopped and snapped photos. We looked out for one another in the small, instinctive ways that women do — saving a seat, sharing an umbrella, noticing when someone had gone quiet. For seven days, we were guided by the exceptional Casey, whose official job was to get us from point A to point B to point C, but who also shared her love for her adopted home country with grace, humor, and unfailing organization. Because of her, the logistics were a success. Because of each other, the trip was something more.
You might think this essay belongs in the Wednesday Tender Warrior — Belonging to Community. And there’s truth in that. But it feels more like a testimony to the value and importance of Home.
For seven days, we were each other’s home. Our safe space. Our anchor in a country none of us lived in, moving through places none of us knew, never staying anywhere long enough to feel settled. When you tour in Europe, it’s easy to feel nomadic — disconnected from any fixed point. The community of travelers is what keeps you tethered. Home, in that context, is not a place. It’s the people who are going the same direction you are.
I saw Paris the way I wanted to see it. The Musée d’Orsay. The Palais Garnier. The Jacquemart-André Collection. Shopping - a must. Vintage clothing shops in the Marais. Boutiques along Saint-Germain with lovely things that made me feel, wearing them, like I had been to Paris.
In Honfleur and Saint-Malo, small quaint shops offered finds we wore the same evening. They made us feel like travelers, which is a different feeling than tourist — more alive to where you are, more present in it.
And then Bayeux. The American Cemetery. Omaha Beach.
We spent most of a day there, and I am still processing it. We saw the beach from both perspectives — from the Allied position, looking up at daunting terrain against relentless fire, and from the German position, looking down at what was coming. Today it is a lovely coastline. Then, it was — words don’t quite come. Awesome. Reverent. Sobering. The kind of place that asks something of you just by standing in it.
Never again, we hope.
It was a wonderful and memorable trip — for Paris and for Normandy, and more importantly for the tribe I was part of for seven days. We’ll stay in touch. Life has a way of drawing us back to our own schedules, our own rhythms. That’s okay. These women — strong, curious, self-possessed — are in my world now, and I in theirs. I suspect that if one of us sent a message tomorrow suggesting a reunion somewhere in the States, we would fall right back to where we were in France. Some connections are like that. They don’t require maintenance to stay real.
And then: home.
At the end of a trip, there is a particular mental preparation that happens. The boarding passes, the rides, the connections, all planned. One by one, or in small groups, we left for the airport. We were ready to travel home.
My 4:30 am alarm was a text: flight cancelled due to mechanical issues.
A cascade of changes followed. I arrived home two days later than planned, rerouted and rescheduled and patient in the way that travel sometimes requires. There was nothing that couldn’t be accommodated, and I was glad - relieved - that I had the time and ability to absorb it.
But I will tell you: by then, I really wanted to get home.
Not just to my house. To my space. My place of replenishment. My anchor. Where I nurture myself in this season of discovery. Where I write, which is such a huge part of who I am now.
After almost two weeks of beautiful, stimulating, exhausting, joyful, moving, accumulating experience — I needed to exhale. And there is only one place I know how to do that fully.
Home. Capital H.
I did arrive, eventually. Later than planned, with more clothes than I left with, a phone full of photos and memories, and a small, special place in my heart for nine lovely women who were, for seven days, exactly enough.
Home is where you finally exhale. After everything — after caregiving, after loss, after Paris, after Omaha Beach, after cancelled flights and rerouted connections — it is still the truest thing I know. Whether it be a person or a place, Home is and will always be my anchor.
What does coming home feel like for you — after a trip, after a hard season, after anything? I’d love to hear in the comments.