Where do you feel at home?
There’s a wonderful poster on sale at Target right now. It says, “Home is where your story begins.” In life, as in baseball, home is the place we leave from, and the place we come back to. It is our reference point, framing our journeys. It is the place we tell our stories. It is the place we can invite guests. For some, home is a place of nostalgia. For others home is a place to escape from. And for still others, home is a utopia.
Where do you feel most comfortable? (And is that the same thing as feeling at home?) Is home for you a physical place? A moment on the calendar? Maybe home is a book or a poem, a play or a movie. Maybe you are homeless. Maybe you feel at home anywhere—how do you do it? How do you make a home for yourself?
I feel most at home when I’m doing something that recurs outside of a time line even if the activity itself is temporary.
If I’m on my bike, cooking dinner, or sitting without obligation in my parent’s living room, then I feel at home because the activity is periodic. I know I’ll be doing it again at some time in the future because I will want to.
I don’t feel at home when obligations impose deadlines on everything. Maybe that’s why I don’t read much for pleasure anymore?
I feel at home when I am with fellow Jews, easy-going people who laugh alot, and my siblings. It’s the people more than the place that make a home.
Just before my head hits the pillow and exhaustion overtakes what’s left of consciousness, my fleeting thoughts often linger on the uncertain place I inhabit. It is the same moment of solitude before the phone rings on saturday night, before someone reminds you that you are connected to something, that you aren’t merely defined by how you spend your time during the week.
From the beginning of our journey to college, we cram ourselves among as many people as we can in our freshmen dorms and inundate ourselves tasks and events to fill the terrifying vacuum of loneliness. Busy-ness can temporarily supercede our fears of belonging, but there is an inevitable moment of insecurity that will creep up on us when we least expect it, and shakes our very foundations. In a place, and indeed a world, in which everyone is transplanted from what is familiar and expected to carve out some semblance of order, we must cling to our evidence of community, proof that our lives bear elements of authenticity and meaning.
Thus is the challenge of our nebulous world, to find permanence when jobs, relationships, and home become increasingly impermanent. Are we to find solace in the increasingly impersonal cyber relationships of global communications, of facebook and myspace? I surely have not.
My home is the phone call on Saturday night. My home is the risk people take to say that they care, that they want to invest themselves in something uncertain. My home is when someone can roll their eyes after my protracted comedic ramblings in validation of my bizarre idiosyncracies (and unique ability to kill any joke). My home is visiting a friend over summer vacation. My home is the recognition that friends and family have invested the time to embrace me in their life, and that I can unflinchingly extend myself just the same.
Our world is only as lonely as our fear to reach out. Our home is only a few risks away.
I feel at home when I’m with people whom I love. Home is where the heart is, eh? (Can this post be any more cliche?) But really, home for me is where I feel that I belong, and I feel that I belong with certain people.
in the river, flyfishing.
Anywhere I feel comfortable being alone, and am not thinking about what to do with my hands.
Sitting on my big arm chair with the orange blanket, anytime day or night sitting in absolute silence listening to the birds and watching the walls turn to a deep orange…and sky turn into a a midnight blue.
I feel most at home when I’m with people or in a place where I know that I’m accepted and appreciated for who I am. I equate feeling at home with feeling comfortable.
i feel at home in the arms of a best friends. under the blankets. head under the pillow. and if its even better if its raining!
I with you agree. In it something is. Now all became clear, I thank for the help and I hope to see more such articles.
I feel at home in places of no judgment filled with wonderful energy, great music, and good memories. It is a place to re-energize and revitalize
I saw somebody else had posted a question very like this and some hateful person managed to get it removed. But it is an interesting one to think about. I would think he would be at ease with the homeless, he would heal, feed, clothe and love them. He would wash their feet as a matter of respect and humility. These are all things a true Christian should be willing to do.
home is the recognition that friends and family have invested the time to embrace me in their life, and that I can unflinchingly extend myself just the same.
Our world is only as lonely as our fear to reach out. Our home is only a few risks away.
we can in our freshmen dorms and inundate ourselves tasks and events to fill the terrifying vacuum of loneliness.
It is the same moment of solitude before the phone rings on saturday night, before someone reminds you that you are connected to something.
