Home is where the ♥ is

It’s a cloudy morning in Texas. Although the temperature reading is 81 degrees, the wind chill puts it somewhere in the high 70s. Call me crazy, but I was getting goosebumps, so I got a fleece for my legs 🙂 See the picture below.

It feels good to be “home.” The quotation marks are there because I am not from Texas, I’ve never lived in Texas, and this is the first time in my life I’ve stepped into this house. But what makes it home is that my parents live here, that the glasses are the same as the ones I drank out of growing up, that the Persian rug in the living room was the same one we had in our study back home, that the sitting stool in the bathroom is the one that belonged in my sister’s bedroom vanity, and other things like that. I could entertain myself for hours just walking around and pointing at familiar pieces.

Home is a funny concept. I am from Venezuela, but that’s not really home anymore, is it? Don’t get me wrong, I do get a sense of familiarity and warmth whenever I visit, but I have not lived there for one minute of my adult life, which, in a few years, will outnumber my number of childhood and teenage years. Right now, home is wherever my loved ones are. I can go to my cousin Lara Croft’s apartment in Caracas and feel at home, or visit my mother in Texas and feel at home. Or just go anywhere where my husband Brian is and feel at home.

When people ask me where I’m from I have two answers for them: if they appear to be intrigued by the accent, I’ll say Venezuela; but if I’m in a different state and they know I don’t live there I’ll say Boston. It’s all in the context of the question.

I was telling my neighbor Ethel, who is from Pennsylvania, how strange it was that our kids will answer “I’m from Norwood” to that question. She admitted to have marveled at that, too. As parents, we control where our kids are from. It’s a little mind boggling, isn’t it?

Now I’m just rambling. Procrastinating, I guess.

If you haven’t visited your home, I encourage you to take the time. Most times it won’t be a place, but people.

ina

I’ll leave you with the lyrics to a great song by Miranda Lambert called “The house that built me”. Watch the song on youtube here.

♫♪ I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine ♫♪

♫♪ Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard ♫♪

♫♪ I thought if I could touch this place or feeling
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me ♫♪

♫♪ Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream ♫♪

♫♪ I thought if I could touch this place or feeling
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me ♫♪

♫♪ You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am ♫♪

♫♪ I thought if I could touch this place or feeling
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me ♫♪