Home
Home can mean so many things. It can mean our physical residence, our city, our country. Something can smell like home, feel like home, sound like home. We can consider a person to constitute our home. Our home could be where we were born or raised. The ‘home team’ doesn’t mean the members all live at the field/ground. Yet I feel ‘at home’ at my girlfriend’s place and don’t often admit how ‘at home’ I feel in the kitchen.
Have your ever found yourself saying ‘I am going home for the weekend’ in reference to your parent’s house. Only to turn around and and announce your departure from their home by saying ‘Alright, I think we should be heading home now’? I know I have.
Home is a feeling. A safety. An acceptance. Home is familiar and comfortable. Home is nice. We are always welcome at home.
My son understands this concept better than most adults. Being a toddler his world revolves around safe, comfortable places. Home is the thing he understands best. Yet he can feel totally at home in an alien place, so long as the right people and objects are with him (the real reason for a baby bag). Home is like his bar (yes, you remember tip) he asks to ‘go home now’ when he is tired of where he is. He tells me that loved ones have ‘gone home’ as soon as we close the front door after a farewell. And often for hours, days and even weeks after that. But reassures me that they will ‘come home soon’ – meaning our home.
Our place really is like that. It is a space where people take their shoes off, not because I am precious about dirt. That is laughable. They take their shoes off (or so I hope) because they know they will curl up on our couch with a coffee or a beer. They often help themselves to said coffee and beer, too! If the proverbial shit hit the fan, I know some of our friends would be comfortable here. They would crave their things, autonomy and the space their own home affords, but I like to think they wouldn’t miss the feeling of a home.
I know I am home when I smell the sea breeze, or feel my over-sized glass teacup in my hands. I feel like I am home when I smell my husbands cologne when my head is resting against his chest in a hug. I feel like home when my son is cuddled up in my arms. I feel like I am home when I see my kitchen bench. I feel at home in jeans.
