my own space is important. i have to have a small part of this world that feels like home. but what is home to me varies. sometimes it is the literal space i find myself driving to everyday after work. and though that place may vary and the people i am living with change, a part of home is that roof you live your life under, where you lay your head each night.
however, i am learning that home is more than just that. they say, "home is wear the heart is,"and i truly believe this familiar quote to be most certainly true. which therefore means i find my home in so very many places. a friend of mine jokes that i heart too many things. and it's true. whenever we're driving together i definitely overuse the phrase, "i love this song." but i do, i love many songs! i find feelings, hope, joy, solace...in many, many songs.
my family and friends, they, of course, have pieces and parts of my heart. they are the ones i would go to the ends of the earth for. and as much as i may say i hate the overuse of the word love, there is something to it when i say i love this or that. i have deep affection and will give great attention to those things i say i love. i love people, things and places because in part of what they offer me, but also because it is in my nature to love and have affection, and demonstrate an appreciation for that which i say i love. and what i love is my heart, and where my heart is, there i do find my home.
i love audrey hepburn films, live music outdoors, the sound of a violin, the voice of etta james, making lists and checking things off...i love my church, i adore owls, i am enamored with beautiful handbags, a new dress, a british accent, colorful picture frames, mint green...i have great fondness for binge watching gilmore girls, reading judy blume books, tom hiddleston's smile, the humor of mindy kaling, the sound of the pacific ocean, a charming pencil sharpener, all things kate spade...i have a great attachment to the beauty of land, the smell of of suntan lotion and a good taco...and in someway, i find that all of these things/experiences/places, as fleeting or sustaining as they may be they offer a home to me in some way.
that home is a sense of comfort, inspiration and enjoyment.
my bedroom is basically a place for thousands, yes thousands of books to live. every single wall is lined with bookshelves, and every single shelf is sagging with books. in these stories, i find a home. i make friends with the characters. i enjoy living in their shoes for awhile. i laugh with them, i love with them, i cry with them, i hope with them. books, in and of themselves, their binding and smell, the way they are decorated, the feel of the pages, i find, are a piece of my home.
home is found in nature. it is found in the glory of God's creation. it is uncovered through the mountains and the oceans, through a sky full of stars, and the morning light just before the sun has fully risen. i find when i enter into the vast natural world around me, where trees and grass are in abundance, where wild life can be clearly seen, where flowers bloom, and the skies are vast, here is where i experience God most intimately, here is a taste, i think, of my heavenly home.
home is an a dog, who i believe found me, rather than the other way around. she came into my life when i needed her most, and she understands the emotional terrain she walks with me in day by day. she is attentive to the mood and she is who i need her to be. her affection and appreciation for me makes me want to be the person she thinks i am. she has my heart, in a way, more than i thought an animal of all things ever could. perhaps, that is only something one says before they have children...and maybe it makes me crazy, but that's okay, she is my home.
what i've discovered over the past two years though, more than all of these people, places, experiences and things, home is found in words. words in song, words in conversation, words on a page, the words the meld together out of my own creativity and thinking. these words, they are my home. if i am lucky, i will always have words. putting words to page is so vastly important to me right now. if i had to pick one thing i could do, spend 40 hours of my week invested in, it would be this: the typing of the keys, the putting pen to page, the filling up my tanks, and then letting out what needs to be said.
it really doesn't matter to me the amount of readers...the act and art of writing is more about self-care and nurturing my creativity. it is more about not going insane. it is definitely not about perfection.
i would rather be poor in money, but rich in words.
writing is what i am committing myself to in 2015.
my efforts thus far have been sporadic at best. so now, i have a plan. if home is where words are, then this is where i want to find myself as often as possible. giving heart and attention to these words that ask and sometimes demand to be written down and spoken.
if home is a place you find yourself every day for hours on end...
then writing is my true home//my life that is not in place or thing.
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