The Way Back Home is a novel of grace, of forgiveness and of love.
Can love lead us back home?
Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Maine.
“Most nights I fall asleep wondering about where you are. If you’ll ever find you way home to me.”
These are the thoughts of Eric, a man in love and a man waiting for his lost love.
In this story of love a couple is torn apart by time and a tragedy, in the form of a depression. They each set out on a journey to encounter what faith, forgiveness and losing love to find it anew all means.
The thing about hearts, Tilda thought, are that they won’t quit talking of the things they desire. Not even after we stop listening.If only I could gather all my longings and let the water carry it all far away, then I’d have no troubles. No aches, no desires.
Tilda, a young woman on the path of self-discovery, one day finds herself contemplating these words, lying on her bathroom floor. But to unravel the mystery of where she took a wrong turn in life, she must face the past. For in order for us to find our way back home, we must first face ourselves and our own shadows.
Excerpt
NOTE: The book can be read for free at:
http://authonomy.com/books/46300/the-way-back-home/read-book/#chapter
The Way Back Home
The Madman
You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
Kahlil Gibran
Preface
4th of April 2012, Denmark
It’s Easter. In Christian tradition Easter is the time of death and rebirth, when Jesus was crucified, died on the cross, was buried and reborn. When I was younger Easter meant treasure hunt. It meant that my sister and I could look forward to a visit from the Easter bunny. (In the garments of my mother unknown to us at the time, of course.) We used to collect Easter eggs on the moor, amongst the wild rye around our parents summerhouse.
Yesterday when I was sitting at the dinner table with my parents - asking my mother to please hide Easter eggs again this Easter just for the sake of nostalgia (and my young girl's heart) – my mother told me a story from my childhood.
I remember that you would walk out there in the wild rye for hours. Always searching for the eggs unfound. One time, we couldn't find all of them and at some point we gave up and went inside. Then months later we were back at the summerhouse and you were sitting on the swing. The sun was shining, and you were swinging as high as you could go making my nerves jump... Anyways, suddenly your expression changed. Your eyes had caught sight of something glistening in the sun. I watched as your eyes grew large and you immediately stopped swinging. You jumped off of the swing, went into the wild rye and bent down. Then you came running into the house, a big smile across your face.
"Look! I found it!"
"What did you find, honey?"
"The lost Easter egg!"
"Sure you did."
The story above illustrates the essence of what I’ve portrayed in this novel. Life is an adventure, a treasure hunt, but it is when we lose the sense of adventure and of feeling alive, that we begin to feel “burdened” by life. Then we must move and rediscover ourselves. As sure as that Easter egg was found, as sure is it that if we are brave enough to ask the question we most need to ask, we will eventually find the answer.
In the autumn of 2007 I was diagnosed with a clinical depression. This story is not about the scientific part of the disease. It is about the spiritual journey. It is about mercy, about love and the path of finding out who we really are.
In this story I have tried to “show the way home.” Although it might be a cliché it still rings true: if you follow your heart, you’ll never be lost.
Charlotte Luxhoej
*
One years ago.
A leap of faith. Those were the first words that came to her mind as she was lying on the cold white tiles in the shower. The warm water ran down her body, as she tried to absorb some of its clarity and strength. Outside the bathroom door was her past and her present. However, she’d been presented with a new possible future. A leap of faith was what she’d been asked to take. Guaranteeing nothing, but offering everything. Jumping was what she was contemplating. The thing about the free will is that no one else has the responsibility for the choices we make. They are entirely our own, and we decide solely whether or not to follow in the direction that our hearts point, Tilda thought.
The thing about hearts is that they won’t quit talking of the things they desire. Not even after we stop listening. If only I could gather all my longings and let the water carry it all far away then I’d have no troubles. No aches, no desires. As if the water heard her, it seemed to ease her mind as it continued to flow over her.
There was a silent knock on the door.
“Are you all right, honey?” It was the voice of her boyfriend.
Yes. And no, she thought. Tilda got up slowly from her position on the floor, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She braced herself against the sink looking into the mirror. Whom she saw was far from the person she’d thought she’d be by now. Where was the girl that’d dreamed of enchantment, of fairytales, of unending love? How had she been replaced with this one of disillusion? Of fear, cowardice and control? It hadn’t happened fast. On the contrary. Every little turn she’d taken had taken her away from the path she’d felt was hers to walk. Now she didn’t remember what that path was. She didn’t even know how she got to where she was. At that moment a little flicker of light shone in her mind as sunlight through tree crowns in a dense, dark forest. It was in the disguise of the first lines from a classic Italian tale that an answer to her questions found her.
“Midway on our life's journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.”
*
A vision of the past found her.
The amusement park. Her parents had taken her there when she was a little girl. It was one of her first memories.
“There you go”, the girl in the booth tells Tilda, and hands her a fishing pole. It has a magnet attached to the end of a string. ”The game is to fish three rubber ducks from the pond”, she continues. Tilda looks at the little pond. A small electric current runs through it, making the rubber ducks bounce and turn in different directions. “You have to touch the magnet to the one on the rubber duck’s head. All three ducks have to be in the same color”, the shop girl says. ”But all the ducks are yellow”, Tilda answers. “Don’t let appearances fool you. They look the same, but every duck has a different color.” The shop girl picks a couple of ducks up and shows them to Tilda. On the belly hiding in the water is a spot of color. “See? If you get three black ducks”, the shop girl continues,” they will give you access to whatever you want.” Glancing a smile in Tilda’s parents’ direction, she adds: “Except the register.” Tilda looks around the booth and catches sight of a big teddy bear sitting on the top shelf. Its chest colored like the rainbow. That is what she wants. The rainbow teddy bear. “Go ahead, honey”, says her mother and strokes her hair. Tilda sits down in front of the pond looking at the ducks with concentration as they swim by her. She makes a wish. Please, she directs to the presence that’s always nearby. The imaginary friend that nobody can see, but who’s real enough. Let me have my wish come true. As an answer her imaginary friend directs her attention to a sentence that Tilda once overheard riding in the bus with her mother. “Nothing comes without a price, my dear.”
“I don’t have anything to offer in return”, Tilda tells her imaginary friend. “But I still wish for the teddy bear with the rainbow colored tummy.” The presence beside her answers: “That’s not what I meant. I meant: you can only wish for one thing at a time, but the wishes are infinite.”
Tilda puts the magnet to the head of a rubber duck, letting it hover there for a while.
“Not yet”, says the presence. Another pair passes her. “Now.” Tilda puts the magnet on the rubber duck passing just then and pulls it out. The shop girl, who’s been talking to Tilda’s parents, turns her attention toward Tilda now and takes the duck off the magnet. She turns it over. “Black,” she says and smiles. “Two more to go.”
*
“Honey?” The sound of his words brought her back to the bathroom. Tilda cleared her throat, and shook her head for the same effect to her mind. The memory of the amusement park had come like a flash of lightening and had gone just as fast. “Yes. I’m fine. I’ll be out in a little while.” She could feel him linger in front of the door, his anxiety vibrating in the air making her stomach turn into a knot. How was she supposed to do this? How could she, really, do this to the man that had loved her for such a long time? With such passion and… The world seemed to split open at that thought. A lightning bolt split the sky following at the heels of a stroke of thunder. All of it as to underline the words she wasn’t saying. He loved her, yes. But did she love him? She already knew the answer. As she’d known from the beginning. As hard rain began to slush against the small window in the room Tilda began to wonder. If there were gods like in ancient Greek what were they trying to tell her now? What should she do? As thunder ran across the endless sky once again, something in her opened up. The presence she’d always felt and trusted as a child came roaring forth from somewhere deep within. It was an overwhelming silence that filled up her entire being. With it came the answer: “tell the truth.” That was when she knew she needed to remember.
Professional Reviews
Authonomy book review by Joseph Sale, author
Charlotte,
I love Dante's Inferno, and this is a startling effort to allegorically recreate it - I also feel the personal nature of this, but it is more than biography, it is most definitely art.
And there's no higher praise than that.
(...)
I love the 'Madman' foreword - a brilliant quote, and one I've never read before. Quite intriguing.
High Stars and i wish you all the best of luck with this. Congratulations.
- Joseph Sale
Wolf Rising (a werewolf/vampire story based in Egyptian mythology)
http://authonomy.com/books/46300/the-way-back-home/
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