Home - or someplace like it

I guess many of us don't realise all the things we do and all the places we go on an average day. There must be an infinite number of schedules that people all over the world follow. But all - or at least most - of us come back to someplace that we call home.

So what exactly defines a home?

I've heard lofty sayings that a house is just four walls of bricks but a family makes a home. I've never really been one for lofty sayings.

It would probably be safe to say that a lot of us really don't think about what 'home' is until there's some space between us and the place that we take for granted at the end of every busy day. I've recently had the chance to reevaluate what home means to me...the concept, the physical space, the insitution. In my opinion, it's where I feel uninhibited. Don't get ideas...it just means that much like a person that you're in love with...home is where the walls have stood witness to your life...that if they could speak, they'd have fabulous accounts to give of the years that you've spent within their limits. Which is why plenty of people call their schools 'home' or a place that they go to trek often as 'home'. It's because the particular space can give testimony to their evolution, in every sense of the term.

Like I said earlier...home really comes to mind only when you're away from it for a while. Well, at least in my case. I've been living out of a suitcase for the past few weeks and frankly I hadn't felt at home for sometime now. The phenomenon of always being on the go gave me a feeling of discombobulation. But the other day, I regained a sense of oreintation. Which led me to develop a strong conviction. That home really is where the heart is. Looking into your heart is the only way of figuring out whether a space is home or not. Because the space that we call home is a part of our heart. We travel with it. And so in a sense, we never leave it behind. So if you're in a space and can manage to look into your heart and bring those fuzzy feelings that remind you of a safe familiarity that you associate only with home, you know you're there.

When I developed the conviction, I was able to do just that...look into my heart and feel like I was home. Because home really is where the heart is. And quite honestly, I think that's probably the only lofty idea that exists.