As soon as I get home

When Dorothy seeks from the Wizard of Oz knowledge to on how to get back home, she was never seeking an actually road map. What Dorothy actually represents is the need for all of us to find a place where we become self actualized. My first recollections of a movie was “The Wiz” the black version of the “The Wizard of Oz” with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson easing down the road to Quincy Jones' superb music. I have always listened to the soundtrack for enjoyment, wisdom in it’s lyrics and to assuage moments when I have been seeking my own ‘home’.

When Lena Horne tells Diana’s ‘Dorothy’ “That home is place we all have to find child. It’s not a place where we eat or sleep. But home is knowing/ knowing your mind/ knowing your heart/knowing your courage/when we know ourselves/we are always home,/anywhere”, it becomes the movie itself. It’s not “Glenda the good witch” delivering some lines, but an actual woman so fully self expressed that the lines become an extension of her wisdom and knowledge. In the darkest times, I try to recall those lines, when I feel lost and seeking a place of refuge and wonder why I am not in my own ‘home’ but still on a journey that seems to be endless, Lena Horne’s monologue seems to set it straight.

I think we are all Dorothys in this world. Not just seeking a place to belong, but having to learn who are. Our journey’s start out simple, black and white, in childhood, seeking to be heard by the world around us. Then once we have an ‘incident’ that transports us to a place where we continuously try to get back to ‘home’ only to realize that there is no ‘home’ to return to. We have transformed/changed/mutated into Technicolor from the experience itself. What’s interesting is that we never get to know what happened to Dorothy after her transformation. We never get to see how she relates to the world around her as she once knew it. She needed courage to deal with the ‘witch’ who harassed her about her dog, but did it bring about wisdom to see that that woman was lonely? What did she do with heart she gained? Did she use it to find someone to love her like her Auntie Em did? Perhaps, the author left that to our imaginations because perhaps he knew that people would seek for the same self actualization as Dorothy had. We will never know when and what will complete ourselves. It took Dorothy 3 things to become the person she needed to be.

And that’s the trick to life, discovering what it takes to be who you already are.