Home is where your hat rests to keep your head sheltered from storms that continue to arrive and where you nest to raise or tip your hat to those that you said goodbye.
I have been told that it is soulfully mature to carry one's sense of home within. For all of my adult life, I believe I've lived in concert with that, feeling no particular living space was more comfortable than the previous. Perhaps I've just not lived in the right space yet.
Richard, I think carrying one’s home within is definitely something I aim for. And there might be right spaces where one can feel at home on the outside too. It’s sort of like a both/and situation. Thank you!
Mobile society. New jobs, new friends, family discounts. A fortunate person to find a place to hang the hat in a rat race world where going faster gets you nowhere near where you’re headed nor closer to the end zone to score, what? Touchdown. Six points or a landing on another planet? Life is leaping hurdles. Toss the hat into the ring. If you got a song in your heart that keeps you sane you’re a lucky person.
You sketch out the idea of home so well, Priya. Home as a feeling but also a mental state. The Russian matryoshka doll is a lovely concept of home. I've lived in 5 different countries and it never took me long to get the sense that where I slept was home. Feeling AT home somewhere is a whole other thing though.
There are definitely layers to the idea of home. Ideally, being at home with ourselves would lead us to feel at home wherever we go. Thank you for reading!
So lovely. Other than moving from Texas to California over thirty years ago I've only moved abodes. Most of those I've turned into my homes, with my bed, with cat, my books, a comfy place to sit and read or write. A window to look out of. That's really all I need to be at home. And of coffee of course. When I go back to Texas to see my mother, it's not home anymore. I have memories but I don't have a connection to the current place, for many reasons. Whenever I travel anywhere I always get anxious beforehand too and I'm so grateful to come home.
For many years, I thought of home as a house my wife and I built in Idaho, even though we lived for decades internationally and moved from country to country in the same way that people move from town to town and state to state.
Those different countries we lived in became home quickly. We found friends, put down roots, discovered food, customs, and places we learned to love. We also complained about the same kinds of things we complained about in our country of birth. We also tried to take all our photos of our exotic new homes with the first month or so because everything became normal and unremarkable in about that much time.
Now I have five or six hundred books on my Kindle that I can read in my lightweight backpacking tent. I can write, enjoy where I can travel by foot and have all the comforts I need. Home can also be a backpack.
Wherever and whatever we call home is, it is the place where we conduct the experiment we call life.
Mr. Switter, it reminds me of the quote wherever you go, there you are. I wishes life wasn’t so experimental all the time though 😀! Thank you, I enjoy hearing about your adventures.
Home is where your hat rests to keep your head sheltered from storms that continue to arrive and where you nest to raise or tip your hat to those that you said goodbye.
A place for both arrivals and farewells then! Thank you!
A thoughtful sojourn for not only you but your readers as we progress down life's path and contemplate where home truly is. Thank you.
Thank you Jeanine, for reading and sharing!
A pleasure!
I have been told that it is soulfully mature to carry one's sense of home within. For all of my adult life, I believe I've lived in concert with that, feeling no particular living space was more comfortable than the previous. Perhaps I've just not lived in the right space yet.
Richard, I think carrying one’s home within is definitely something I aim for. And there might be right spaces where one can feel at home on the outside too. It’s sort of like a both/and situation. Thank you!
Mobile society. New jobs, new friends, family discounts. A fortunate person to find a place to hang the hat in a rat race world where going faster gets you nowhere near where you’re headed nor closer to the end zone to score, what? Touchdown. Six points or a landing on another planet? Life is leaping hurdles. Toss the hat into the ring. If you got a song in your heart that keeps you sane you’re a lucky person.
You sketch out the idea of home so well, Priya. Home as a feeling but also a mental state. The Russian matryoshka doll is a lovely concept of home. I've lived in 5 different countries and it never took me long to get the sense that where I slept was home. Feeling AT home somewhere is a whole other thing though.
There are definitely layers to the idea of home. Ideally, being at home with ourselves would lead us to feel at home wherever we go. Thank you for reading!
So lovely. Other than moving from Texas to California over thirty years ago I've only moved abodes. Most of those I've turned into my homes, with my bed, with cat, my books, a comfy place to sit and read or write. A window to look out of. That's really all I need to be at home. And of coffee of course. When I go back to Texas to see my mother, it's not home anymore. I have memories but I don't have a connection to the current place, for many reasons. Whenever I travel anywhere I always get anxious beforehand too and I'm so grateful to come home.
LeAnn, you’re right about how surrounding ourselves with what is vitalizing/ nourishing can help create a home around us! Thank you for reading!
For many years, I thought of home as a house my wife and I built in Idaho, even though we lived for decades internationally and moved from country to country in the same way that people move from town to town and state to state.
Those different countries we lived in became home quickly. We found friends, put down roots, discovered food, customs, and places we learned to love. We also complained about the same kinds of things we complained about in our country of birth. We also tried to take all our photos of our exotic new homes with the first month or so because everything became normal and unremarkable in about that much time.
Now I have five or six hundred books on my Kindle that I can read in my lightweight backpacking tent. I can write, enjoy where I can travel by foot and have all the comforts I need. Home can also be a backpack.
Wherever and whatever we call home is, it is the place where we conduct the experiment we call life.
Mr. Switter, it reminds me of the quote wherever you go, there you are. I wishes life wasn’t so experimental all the time though 😀! Thank you, I enjoy hearing about your adventures.
Life isn’t very experimental in prison, I hear, at least it isn’t mostly!
A great piece, Priya, very well written and very thought-provoking.
‘Can I be my own home’ — is such an interesting and important question. I’ll be thinking about that for a while.
Thanks Priya :)
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you!
I love your imagery of home. Great post!