 | Main Entry: home 1 one's place of residence 2 the social unit formed by a family living together 3 a familiar or usual setting: congenial environment: the focus of one's domestic attention: home is where the heart is 4 a place of origin: one's own country |
A bit clichéd to pull from the dictionary to organize my thoughts, but writing a blog is a far cry from writing my Master's thesis (God bless its 85 pages of pain). I've been thinking about home today, and the meaning of being home. It's such a versatile little world, and capable of stirring up such intense meaning. Webster's Online Dictionary busted out with 42 entries for it, varying in depth. My favorite of those listed above is the robotic "Focus of one's domestic attention." It sounds so C3P0.
As usual, I digress. The end result of my thinking is the following stray thought: is it wrong that I use the same word for Valdosta, my apartment in Madrid, my family's house, the structure of the building where I reside, and anywhere with my significant other? Shouldn't there be some kind of marker to spell out what's more or less important? Should we say "residence" and reserve "home" for more emotional meanings? And why does "domicile" and "habitat" sound so National Geographic?
Pestering ideas, but relevant. For so long, Madrid was tied up to this knot of hope in my heart, with the idea that one day I would be back in the place where I had felt the happiest in my young life. So by what complex chain of emotions has Madrid stopped feeling like my home and become a different thing? How can a place suddenly drop off the radar of emotions?
So many silly rhetorical questions that I suppose one more can't possible hurt. Is home a destination? Because at times home feels like a place I'm drifting towards slowly, a place to lie down and rest; other times it's what I've left as I set out on some journey, leaving behind what I'm not sure I'll ever see again.
