Welcome Home! It's about time we met.

Let's rewrite an archaic belief of what home is and its inherent stability so we can choose to thrive literally anywhere.

Remembered Gate | Bahrain Fort | Photo by Gretel Patch

“Through the unknown, remembered gate…”

T.S. Eliot reminds me that exploring the unknown may actually be revisiting the familiar with a fresh perspective. I feel fear as I write this first post, but my feet are on known soil as I navigate new possibilities.

I have been a writer since I first held a pen to colored paper, then typed with whiteout nearby, and eventually click-clacked into a word processor and beyond. Words center me, ground me, and today they connect me to you.

Currently, I am writing my first book, a piece of memoir that curates the hard and beautiful of creating ordinary homes in extraordinary places to inspire readers to find renewed meaning in their own journeys. I can’t wait to have you read it, but until then I’m thrilled to have you join me here.

Redefining home

These conversations matter for global humanity now more than ever–today and always–in how we live and learn, mother and father, sister and brother, and raise rising generations.

I want to rewrite an archaic belief of what home is and its inherent stability. Let’s reframe and rethink as we wrestle with universal themes of:

• yearning for and cultivating home

• foraging the unknown

• choosing to thrive literally anywhere

When my parents lost a long legal battle and with it my childhood home, I determined as a young girl that my children would sell lemonade to neighbors they knew and climb trees with roots clinging to their native earth below. Instead, our life has been repotted in foreign soils, providing room to grow and ultimately thrive. I’ve learned stability isn’t permanence but perspective.

Cultivating home in unexpected places for nearly twenty years, I have mothered across continents and cultures in Djibouti, Sydney, Kathmandu, Arizona while my husband served in Iraq, Mumbai, Frankfurt, and currently Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Choosing to thrive anywhere–to be At Home Anywhere–is a choice I still make each day.

A bigger welcome mat

Here we will build community, a space where all are welcome, where we scooch in and make room.

As members of a worldwide human family, though often dysfunctional and disconnected, we are more alike than different. If we can create home wherever we live and land, perhaps we can place larger welcome mats, open wider doors, and squeeze in a few more chairs around our tables, strengthened because we know each other. In our brokenness and differences, our similarities and commonalities, as a friend once said, we will bond on our broken edges.

What you won’t find

Perfection. This is going to be a clumsy journey. When life gets really crazy I’ll probably overlook posting. When I don’t know how to properly share details, I may hold them close until I do. I’m not enlisting a team of professionals to get everything right. It’s going to be bumpy.

But…it’s also going to be real. I will show up as an ordinary person doing ordinary daily rituals (sometimes in really extraordinary places). If you’re willing to join me as I muddle through, conversing as friends on a long walk, you’re in the right place.

Be imperfect with me.

Now what

For now, you’ll receive an e-newsletter twice a month, a personal note from me mailed to your inbox. You don’t have to do a thing. If you want to pledge your support (and bless you if so!) it helps me engage in meaningful conversations on a wider scale. Here’s an easy link:

Even if you don’t make a pledge–we’re absolutely still friends–you’ll need to subscribe to my Substack so you can receive the newsletter.

P.S. If you’re new to Substack, you’re in for a real treat. Find curated, in-depth content from writers and creators that make you think not scroll. It’s where awesome people hang out.

I seriously can’t wait,

Gretel

I love old letter seals that drip wax. Consider this personally sealed with love.

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