June 4, 2025
Scottsdale, AZ

I was driving back from Starbucks the other day, when—

Actually, what I started to write but stopped myself was, “I was driving home from Starbucks the other day.”

I stopped myself because in that moment, the word “home” made no sense, at least not to my logical mind. After all, I was driving to a hotel, not to a rented or owned house, apartment or condo. Sure, it was an extended stay hotel, and I’d been there for nearly a month. But even the hotel’s longer-term guests likely paid by the week or month, whereas my financial situation forced me to pay by the night. Moreover, regardless of how long those same guests remained, this wasn’t where they lived. Sooner or later, their reason for being in the area would come to an end, and they would check out to head home.

On top of that, this hotel stood hundreds of miles in one direction from my legal residence (a UPS Store mailbox in another state) and hundreds of miles in the other direction, in a third state, from the storage unit where the little that remains of my life-in-waiting was, well, waiting.

Johnny Mercer may have insisted, 80 years ago, that any place we hang our hat is home. But hats notwithstanding, my Scottsdale hotel wasn’t home. Or was it?

I work out of a coffeeshop most afternoons. It gets me out of my room and into the world, sort of. The other day, as I was pulling out of a Starbucks parking lot, I had the strangest feeling, one I hadn’t experienced even once through my 28 months of full-time wandering, not even during my five-month stop in Payson, AZ or my several month-plus stints in Albuquerque and Sedona. For the first time, I felt as though I actually, finally lived somewhere.

It was hard to accept that as a possibility. Could the open-ended odyssey I’d launched in January 2023 have come to an end without me noticing? If I had reached the end of my Yellow Brick Road, as I’d dubbed the journey in its earliest weeks, could Scottsdale truly be my Emerald City? Or was Arizona my version of Dorothy’s Kansas, given that I’d lived in the state three times before and that Sedona, two hours north of here, had been this journey’s starting point? (In that case, California must have been my Emerald City…like Dorothy’s, an activational stopover on the true journey home.)

To be honest, I was skeptical. Perhaps that home-feeling had been influenced by the barista who, a few hours earlier, had half-remembered my peculiarly customized coffee drink from a previous visit. Or maybe it had been triggered by the two groups of customers who, moments after the barista incident, had introduced themselves to me (after having asked to be introduced to Kyri. Strangers are always drawn to Kyri, but it’s rare for any to offer me their names and ask for mine).

Surely, the Scottsdale-is-home feeling would pass, once the novelty of the Starbucks experience did.

It didn’t.

It hasn’t.

And yet… And yet even if Scottsdale is home, I have hardly “landed.” Again, I’m in a hotel, rarely knowing from one day to the next where the money will come from that will allow me to extend my stay by another night…that will keep me from having to sleep in my car.

What I have come to realize in the days since that first Scottsdale-is-home feeling, however, is that my circumstances are no more uncertain than most people’s…that I have no less security than do most people.

“Secure” jobs can disappear, and do. They have been disappearing nearly daily in the US civil service since the beginning of the year. They disappeared across Canada last month when, despite its 355-year history, the venerable Hudson’s Bay Company shuttered its stores.

Stock markets can crash, wiping out pensions and savings. It happened in 1929, and today’s volatility means it might be happening again for many.

Natural disasters can obliterate homes and entire neighborhoods, as they have done recently in North Carolina, Los Angeles and elsewhere. A spike in mortgage rates can push even the most reasonably priced housing out of reach. Rents can skyrocket, forcing tenants out of their homes, and Airbnbs can swallow up affordable replacements; that’s what drove me out of Sedona 28 months ago.

A catastrophic injury or illness, a sudden death or the abrupt end of a longstanding relationship can also demolish a longstanding status quo, in an instant.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that even were I to find myself in the most solidly secure housing I can imagine — a mortgage-free home that I own outright — would my situation be any more certain than it is now?

On the surface, absolutely. In reality? Probably not.

For me, the only true certainty is the certainty of the moment. In this moment, my home appears to be an extended stay hotel in Scottsdale. In the next? Even were I in a position to pay a month ahead, or even a week ahead, I couldn’t be certain I would still be here through that month, or that week. Life has a way of fracturing our perceived certainties, without warning.

I used the word “home” a moment ago to describe my current digs, and this time I didn’t censor myself. That’s because in writing this piece, I had an earth-shattering aha. That’s the beauty of writing from the infinite realms of the heart: In doing so, we don’t so much write what we know as write to discover what we know…or, in this case, to remember what we had forgotten.

This is what I forgot until a few moments ago…

When I drove into Sedona in August 2019 after three months of wandering (a journey I chronicle in my book Pilgrimage), I didn’t expect to stay…any more than I’d expected to stay 22 years earlier when a similar journey had dropped me there. (I write about that experience in my Acts of Surrender memoir.) In both instances, I did end up staying, thanks to a series of miracles and synchronicities. And in both instances, I considered Sedona home even as I spent my first three months there living in transient circumstances. For that matter, when I moved to Portland from Albuquerque in 2018, I spent eight months in house-sits and hotels before settling into a place of my own.

Which brings me back to my Scottsdale hotel. If Scottsdale is home, then, for as long as I’m here, this hotel is as much home as was Sedona’s New Earth Lodge, where I hung out for three months in 1994 before signing a lease on a condo. It’s as much home as were each of the hotels and house-sits I occupied during my eight transition months in Portland and my three the following year back in Sedona.

And as much as I would love to feel the certainty and security, however illusory, of a less-transient living situation, or even a month’s prepay in this hotel, I have to keep reminding myself that I have as much certainty and security as I need…and as much as most everyone else has.

The deeper certainty, the true security, runs deeper than that. It’s one I know I can count on whatever life throws at me. And it’s the one that has sustained me for more than 30 years. At the same time, it’s the one that’s easiest to forget.

Trust.

“If you have read my Pilgrimage or Acts of Surrender memoirs,” I wrote here a few weeks ago in a piece that was all about trust, “you’ll know that I have experienced many financial crises over the years. Somehow, I’ve managed to navigate to the other side of every one. Somehow, I have always been taken care of, even if that ‘care’ has often shown up in ways I would not have consciously chosen for myself.”

Somehow, over the years, “home” has also shown up when I have needed it and in ways I would not have consciously chosen for myself…often in ways I could never have imagined. Put another way, “home” has chosen me at least as often as I have chosen it.

Scottsdale, it seems, has chosen me…as has this hotel. Maybe its staff has chosen me as well.

The maintenance guy came by a few mornings ago to replace my fridge. “So you’re the celebrity author,” Drake said when I opened the door. “We’ve been talking about you at the front desk. What do you write?”

I started to rattle off my various genres, but he stopped me at "fantasy. “I used to read a lot, and a lot of fantasy. I love Tolkien. How much is your book?”

Drake is now waiting for payday to get at least one of the Q’ntana books from me, as is one of the young guys who works the front desk. The hotel’s sales manager has already bought all four.

Over the past several days, I’ve shared my tentative “Scottsdale-home” sensing with two highly intuitive friends. “You being there feels right to me too,” Rebecca and Aalia said, independently. (They don’t know each other.) “You need to claim Scottsdale as your home,” they both also said. “You need to own it.”

At first, I wasn’t sure what that meant or what to do about it. Then I remembered something I’d said to my friend Sander in 2010, during another moment of home-related transition. “Writing is the only thing that makes any sense,” I cried, my voice shaking with emotion.

It was true then, and it is no less true 15 years later.

So I started writing.

What I started writing became this piece, and this piece is now my statement of ownership.

Whatever it means and for however long I’m here, I’m home.

Photo Credit: “Yellow Brick Road” by Don; creative commons license

Thanks to more miracles and synchronicities than I could ever list here (including many that have originated with you!), I have now been in the Phoenix area for over a month, with all but my first two nights spent here in North Scottsdale. I’m committed to staying and calling the area (and this hotel) home for as long as I feel so guided by my intuitive sensings / higher wisdom…and for as long as those miracles and synchronicities keep showing up.

If you feel inspired enough by my story to contribute to those miracles and synchronicities, you can do so…

through your thoughts, ideas, suggestions
through your words of encouragement
through my work — by buying my books, courses or metaphysical offerings, or by signing up for a coaching series or workshop (I just added more than a dozen new workshops and coaching groups to my events calendar, so check out the expanded offerings! Scroll to the bottom of this post for a quick look at a selection.)
financially, by covering a night or more of my hotel here or through some other contribution **
in some other ways that I haven’t even considered

Regardless, do reach out. Through all the challenges and joys of recent years, your expressions of support and encouragement have always been among the miracles that have kept me going.

** I gratefully accept donations through Zelle (via my cellphone number), PayPal, Apple Cash (iMessage via my cellphone number), CashApp, Facebook Messenger or credit/debit card (reach out to me for details). Prefer to extend my hotel stay directly? Contact me for details.