Home. From the Inside.

From the Inside.

Home. That subtle, simple and brilliant word that means so much and yet we ponder about so little through the course of our existence. We know there are special places where we feel comfortable and secure beyond any reasonable explanation. This sense, in my experience, has really nothing to do with social or physical contexts, because Home is not really a material concept, is it?

Feeling at Home… What does it mean? Does that particular place hold sway upon our mood? Do we breathe better in it that in any other place? Does it draw our thoughts more often? Do we call it so because our family or our personal belongings are there?

It might be any of those things, all of them or many others which make the difference, inciting in us that peculiar perception that makes a zone Homely or, in a very deep sense, Ours. We may not even think about it, but we’re certainly conscious of what it portends to us. We can understand it, heart-fully and resolutely. It’s a certain air, a warmth, a tenderness and safety we cannot perceive anywhere else we might go.

But Home is not, as I said, a material thing, or perhaps not even a location on Earth. Home is a dream, an idea, a sensation, a vibration with which we tune in perfectly. If it shakes, we shake. If it falls silent, we stop speaking, and viceversa.

Because Home is in us, in our bodies and our minds and our souls. Home is the pristine sky we cherish in the morning and the snow-white clouds that cross it aimlessly and happily; Home is our work and our sympathy; Home is our love and the sincerity of our thoughts which we don’t hide from our own eyes; Home is our tears when we fear and our laughs when we rejoice; Home is the clarity of details we find beautiful and sweet; Home is both a memory and an epiphany, both a whenever and a wherever; Home is our need for rest at the end of the day, the journey and the road; it’s our relaxed vigil and our sleep.

And thus, Home is ultimately, above all things… Freedom. D.R.

Photo Credit: Bassil Residence, Lebanon, photo taken by Ken Sparkes.