On Coming and Going Home

Thought for the day: I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home. [Robert Olen]

Honey, I'm ho-o-ome.

Well, if ya really want to be technical about it. I've actually been home for a few weeks, but I was double-doggone determined to finish editing my poor neglected novel before dipping my tootsies back into the blogosphere again. Well, (ta-DA!) I did it! And the manuscript is already (Already??? Who am I kidding? FINALLY!) in the hot little hands of  a small publishing company's editorial team. ( I don't expect to hear anything from them for several months.)

So. Time to dive back in here with y'all. I'm ho-o-ome...

T.S. Eliot said, Home is where one starts from. If that's true, does that make Baltimore my home? I mean, that's where my hubby and I both started. When we drove up there for a visit last month, were we actually... going home? Or were we coming home when we left there and came back to Georgia? As Yul Brenner said, It is a puzzlement!

According to Robert Frost, Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.  And Maya Angelo called home ...  the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.


Ahhhh, HOME. A place where we're always welcome. A safe place, where we belong, and where we're missed when we leave. Sounds all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? Yes sir, tugs at the ol' heartstrings.

But, wait a sec! Thomas Wolfe claimed, You can't go home to your family, back to your childhood...

Is it possible that the warm fuzzy images... of our old hometowns, of our childhoods... are nothing more than (gasp!) drawings in the sand? And those old realities as we remember them have long since been washed away by the waves of time?

Well, duh.




Yeah, there's a certain amount of heartache in visiting the old haunts, and in realizing how many ghosts from the past are just that ... ghosts. Gone forever. There's a certain amount of sadness in visiting the places where dead loved ones once lived and loved.

And yet...  and yet... how wonderful to spend time with family and friends who still live in our old hometown, who share a common history with us, who also remember, and ache for, some of the same ghosts and memories of the past as we do. Who remember us when we were young and foolish, who can laugh with us over shared memories. So, YES! Home is where the heart is, and no matter what ... a part of our hearts will forever linger in our old hometowns, in our childhoods, in our past. Nostalgia is what tugs at our heartstrings, and what calls us back home. 

                                                  Think this guy's gonna make it back home?

Know what? I think the best part of going on vacation is coming back home again. And no matter how much we enjoyed visiting our old hometown, no matter how much we enjoyed spending time with my hubby's mother, sister and her family, it was a vacation...  and our home... is in Georgia. 

So, what do you think defines a home? We all know a house doesn't make a home. (Dionne Warwick told us that years ago.) Is it ... wherever you hang your hat? A state of mind? Are you like a tortoise, carrying your concept of home around with you, and so comfortable inside your own skin that no matter where you are, you're... at home? What do you love most about your home? Is it the people (and critters) you share it with? The things?  Memories? Can you go back home again?

Okay, enough. It's great to be back, babbling about house and home. But ya know what? As Danielle Raine wrote, The cruel irony of housework: people only notice when you don't do it. So, doggone it, I'd better DO it, before somebody (not mentioning any names) starts noticing ...

                                      Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.