through an open door

I've been chatting with friends lately about home. About what makes a place feel like home. What we wish for in our future homes - the elements, the feelings, the traditions. About the power of memory and sensory and how we long to go back, but know that logic and reason prevent us from really doing it.

I've long been fascinated with the idea of what makes a house a home. Is it a process? Arrived at after many years of living in one solitary place? Is there a blueprint to follow? How do you create that feeling you get when you walk in the back door? Home should be a place to not only lay your head, but your heart; somewhere to turn and not be turned away.

What makes us so anxious to leave the place we call home? To stretch our legs? To prove we can make it on our own, leaving the mark of our beloved home behind? Yet, no matter where we land, we long to make that place, near or far from our beginning, feel like the place we so desperately wanted to leave. We make homemade recipes, hoping that the smell of Aunt's cookies or Grandma's bread will disperse and infuse our surroundings, creating a semblance of sanctuary. We sing the songs of childhood, strumming out the chords on Grandpa's guitar. Wrapping ourselves in Mom's quilt, we reach for the tattered photograph taken with Sister on the front porch, brother's silly faces making us smile joyfully back at the lens. Searching for self, we grab the yearbook or the birthday card or the going-away well-wishes from best friends, our fingers tracing the hand-written sentiments. We yearn for days in school hallways and nights at weekend hang outs.

Amidst bread crumbs, quilt squares and old Christmas cards we sit, longing for it. If we are quiet enough, still enough, home encircles; swathing in sounds and smells. We hear Father's footsteps at the back door and the breeze through the upstairs window on a rainy night. Or, a chorus of children's voices shouting night-game "You're-it's!" and "Come-out-come-out-where-ever-you-are's!" Whether we're near or far, our senses take us back to the place we started from. The place we left. The place we can always return, by land, by sea or just by memory.

"Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration." {Charles Dickens}

Going home, going home,
I'm a going home.
Quiet-like, some still day,
I'm just going home.
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.

Work all done, care laid by,
Going to fear no more.
Mother's there, expecting me,
Father's waiting too.
Lots of folk gathered there,
All the friends I knew.

Nothing's lost, all's gain,
No more fear or pain,
No more stumbling by the way,
No more longing for the day,
Going to roam no more.

Morning star lights the way,
Restless dreams all done.
Shadows gone, break of day,
Real life has begun.
There's no break, there's no end,
Just a living on.
Wide awake with a smile,
going on and on...

Going home, going home,
I'm just going home.
It's not far, just close by,
Through an open door.
I am going home...
I'm just going home...
{Dvorak}