…There’s no place like home…

What makes a house a home? Webster defines a house as “a building that serves as living quarters”. A home as “a person’s place of residence. A permanent address”. As if the notion of home can be reduced to a series of letters and numbers.

There must be a combination of things that, with time, can feel like home. A combination of people, pets, objects and routines, traditions and the passage of time. Still, however you reduce it, you could never replicate it in a lab.

…Home away from home…

There is a cabin on a lake in Maine. The first time I went there I was probably 10 years old.

I have never lived there, never stayed more than a week at a time. But every time I arrive, I feel a weight lift. I suddenly realize I have been holding my breath. I breathe, I really breathe.

At night, if it rains, the sound of raindrops combine with the soft lapping of the lake under the dock. Water kissing rocks, an occasional loon or otter, and I sleep like I haven’t slept in months.

…Make yourself at home…

There is a dock, on a canal in the Gulf of Mexico, that belongs to another family now. It is where I learned how to be alone with my thoughts and process emotions. It’s where I learned you can be sad but still be okay.

Give a moody kid with a quiet broody brain a body of water to gaze into and that is where you will find her every time.

…You can never go home…

I found myself near my grandparents’ house and decided to drive by, but I got turned around on new Nashville roads and rusty old memories.

If I had found it, I would have driven creepily by. I do not need to go inside, but I would give almost anything to climb the magnolia tree out front.

…Home sweet home…

There is a house that I lived in for a decade. I still get to spend the night there when I want!

It is the same house, and contains much of the same stuff. But is that what makes it home?

It is home like family is home. Like a good friend is home. On the roof of that house I processed teenage angst. I had revelations while studying clouds at night.

…Home is where the heart is…

There are roads in Coopertown that I know like the back of my hand. Fields where I took photographs at sunrise, before work, then school, then lab time, before home, home again.

On the back-roads of Robertson County, I dipped my toe into adulthood. I dabbled at growing up.

…Home, James, and don’t spare the horses…

There is a driveway in Almaville that is longer than some roads. There is no WiFi, and hardly any cell service. It can feel very lonely, but it’s not the lack of connection; it is something else that I cannot put my finger on.

When the old house burned down, they rebuilt above the pond. This home now crumbles to the ground, be careful on the porch.

The newest house sits proudly on a hill. From this home drifts the sounds of baseball and the smell of southern cooking. Generations have walked these hills.

…Time to head home…

There is a house in the woods, down a road on a hill, that felt like home as soon as we turned on the driveway. The land drew us in, and we made the house comply.

It was home, instantly. It is home, definitively.

Sing song birds and neighborhood dogs. Wind, an occasional airplane overhead. The sounds of the outskirts of a city, the smell of pine sap.

How was it home so quickly? Perhaps the cushion of pine needles underfoot and the smell of them in the air evoked a cabin in Maine. Perhaps it was who I had by my side.

When you return home, what is that feeling? Does it come to you in an image? A sound? Or like me, is it usually a smell?

Pine sap. Salty air. Plaster and old wallpaper. Is it a hug? A wagging tail and wet nose? And how is it that I can feel homesick while sitting here at home?

…Home is where you park it…

Perhaps it is just my restless nature.

When I was born, we lived in Foxboro, Massachusetts. At four, we moved to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Six, Nashville where my family is from. With second grade came a move to St. Petersburg, Florida and with third grade, a return to Nashville.

When someone asks me where I’m from, I usually say Nashville, but what I want to say is, “it’s complicated”.

Perhaps for me the joy of home is in the return. Missing a place and then getting to go back. The constant push and pull of a place that is really a memory of a feeling. Or a smell, definitely a smell.

Is it because I have moved so many times in my life that home is complicated to define? Somehow, I doubt that.

What makes you feel at home? Comment below, we love to hear from you!

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