Day 5-Home
I scrolled back through my dashboard, because I knew I'd written on this very word several times in the course of blogging. As it turns out, I've tagged 775 blog posts with the label 'home', so obviously its a topic near and dear to my writer's heart.
I started thinking about why that is, and I guess it's because at the age of 55 nowhere and everywhere can feel like home. I've been meeting people in this new little town we presently call home, and I'm realizing my girls and I have something in common.
I'm stumped for an answer when asked 'where are you from?'
Where am I from? Am I from New Jersey? We moved here from NJ so there's that. Plus I spent all of my elementary, middle, and high school years in NJ, which means a fair chunk of my life has been marked there.
Hubs and I had another five year stint in NJ when our now grown up girls were just the cutest little tots on the planet, so yes NJ feels like home.
I went to college in East Tennessee and it was there I fell in love with the mountains and a boy named hubs. When we visit family or travel back to meet up with college friends in the Volunteer State I feel very much at home.
We were newlyweds in the early 80's and there was a radio ad with a little chorus that went something like, 'Ain't no place I'd rather be...home's the only place for me...hello Knoxville, hello Tennessee.'
It's quite possible I still bust that out every single time we cross the state line.
Then there's Maryland. We spent nine magical years living beside the Bay. Water always and forever whispers home to me, and Maryland is where my tiny tots grew into their elementary and tween years. The minutes there, they were golden.
Hubs and I always get quiet when we drive across the bridge that takes us into Annapolis. It positively slays me, and if it's a brilliant blue sky sunny day forget it. I've been known to shed a tear at the beauty and the memory and the sunlight sparkling on the water that says welcome home.
Can you call a country not your own home?
Yes. A thousand times yes. In a funny hard to put into words way there's no place I've lived that's felt more like home than the other side of the pond. No other place God's led me where He's spoken more into my life than in those England years.
I learned more about myself in a village not my own than any where else on earth. My tiny tots were teenagers there, and in those years of growing, adventuring, traveling, missing, yearning, and embracing, our hearts were knit together in a way far sweeter than anything I could have asked for or imagined.
I've been a resident of South Carolina now for 58 days, and it's home. I might be living for the time being in an apartment filled with rented knives and forks, but still it's home.
Because we'll make it so.
Home is about so much more than your address...
...home is where your heart is and today my heart is here.
This is a wonderfully written piece. I have only and always lived in Kansas. Except for a very tiny stint in Newport News, Virginia. I have lived in the home I am currently in for the past 26 years. I have nothing to compare to all of your wonderful homes!!
ReplyDeleteLoved your comments on home. Hubby and I have lived in so many places, so I say.... well, originally from Illinois, but.....Like you home is where we hang out hats, so to speak.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right ... and said it so well.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine living all over like you have. I'm sure it's been quite the adventure. I've always lived with 30 minutes of where I am right now. I enjoy so much hearing you tell about all the places you've lived and what you loved about them.
ReplyDeleteI moved so many times as a child but once I got married we've only moved about 3 times in 44 years. But, as you said, wherever we land, it's home.
ReplyDeleteWell done, Joyce. And I agree that home is about people and hearts!!
ReplyDeleteI've covered this topic a few times as well. I'm home here in Nova Scotia, but this summer I went home to Maryland where I did most of my growing up. And My two sons were amazed at the Bay Bridge.
ReplyDeleteSuch sweet memories! Every place has its charm.
ReplyDeleteI can so totally relate to this! I too grew up in one place, went to college in a second, had my babies in a third, and raised them in a fourth! And although I wouldn't trade my experience, I envy those who have real roots in just one place...with lots of family close by.
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