Where is home really? Reminds me of the quintessential "Cheers" theme song. Yes, I have deeply yearned for home, a place where everybody knows my name and my first trip away from home, across many oceans encapsulates this painful experience. But today as I write I wonder what and where home might be.
When I left this seemingly obvious home, I was a daughter, a sister and a student mostly. But Ive grown to embrace myself as a wife, a teacher, a therapist, a spiritual aspirant, a fighter, a student, a volunteer, a friend, a colleague and above all an individual and now, I am not sure where home might be.
Does who you are often change where home may be?
Well, Where is home really? Is it a place where you come back to, watch tv, eat your sundae, do laundry, read, and sleep? or is it a place where you are welcomed by an other who loves you, who cherishes your presence, who converses with you and who accepts you for the many things you are and you are not? Or, is home a space you come to and feel like you were already there? you were home when you were waiting for the bus, you were home when you were sitting with your friend, you were home speaking your truth with a crazy kid in your class. You were home and are home every where you go. Could that be?
But how can it be true when I am standing in the subway waiting for the doggone "A" train to get to the station so i can get to my apartment or when I cannot sit any longer in this cubicle I call my workspace? How can I persist day after day when all my mind calls out for is, home. I do come home only to invoke the same pleading mind "I want to be home, I want to be home".
As I find myself moving from apartment to apartment, country to another, and friend to friend the only thing that seems ever so constant is Me. I take my thoughts, emotions and sensations with Me. I take my mind with Me, and my body comes along. It would seems then that, I live in a home made up of these things first, wouldnt it?
The truth behind it is simple and this morphing sense of home is always a good thing. Apparently. Moving beyond the noises in the head, these many several expectations and appalling reservations is when one finds home, I am told. So where do I go from here? Do i even go?
When I left this seemingly obvious home, I was a daughter, a sister and a student mostly. But Ive grown to embrace myself as a wife, a teacher, a therapist, a spiritual aspirant, a fighter, a student, a volunteer, a friend, a colleague and above all an individual and now, I am not sure where home might be.
Does who you are often change where home may be?
Well, Where is home really? Is it a place where you come back to, watch tv, eat your sundae, do laundry, read, and sleep? or is it a place where you are welcomed by an other who loves you, who cherishes your presence, who converses with you and who accepts you for the many things you are and you are not? Or, is home a space you come to and feel like you were already there? you were home when you were waiting for the bus, you were home when you were sitting with your friend, you were home speaking your truth with a crazy kid in your class. You were home and are home every where you go. Could that be?
But how can it be true when I am standing in the subway waiting for the doggone "A" train to get to the station so i can get to my apartment or when I cannot sit any longer in this cubicle I call my workspace? How can I persist day after day when all my mind calls out for is, home. I do come home only to invoke the same pleading mind "I want to be home, I want to be home".
As I find myself moving from apartment to apartment, country to another, and friend to friend the only thing that seems ever so constant is Me. I take my thoughts, emotions and sensations with Me. I take my mind with Me, and my body comes along. It would seems then that, I live in a home made up of these things first, wouldnt it?
The truth behind it is simple and this morphing sense of home is always a good thing. Apparently. Moving beyond the noises in the head, these many several expectations and appalling reservations is when one finds home, I am told. So where do I go from here? Do i even go?
Well, I suppose one is home if one stops thinking that it is some place else..Kinda stepping on your point, but it's gotten me thinking. I've never ever felt I've been away from home. I've never yearned for home.
ReplyDeleteWhat perhaps I feel a longing for, is when I think of past experiences and want to go there are re-live it. It's a place in time rather than a place.
I think the concept of yearning for home is infact a yearning for a place in time, a time which has passed or may be...I call it home for it probably felt safe, fun, exciting, and so forth. wouldnt you say?
ReplyDeletebut again, i do think you are right. some of us have a deeper yearning for what has been, what should be, because their sense of self (momentarily)comes to be questioned in more ways than ever before and we (read, I)finally wake up to being more conscious about life.
Patanjali talks about this kind of "Avidya" , "Ignorance is the field for the others mentioned after it, whether they be dormant, feeble,itercepted, or sustained" 2.4. He says that the duality we live in that separates "i" from "I" causes one to develop a sense of self ("asmita" or the individual ego")and when this sense of self is invoked one often yearns for more than what/who one is...(simply because there is more)
hi baby!!! simultaneously while u keep searching for your home, i keep searching for my babies yaar :) but thankgod that terrible sense of longing n depression doesnt happen much now yaar :)
ReplyDeleteOne thing i'm sure is that one day u'll find yourself "AT HOME" u no! i'm also waiting for dat to happen in my life but ;)) so maybe u need to wait longer but who knows its not actually dependant on age. so wish u all the best baby! love u.
All the same, it was funz reading da blogthingy yaar. neat!
yay!! thanks appsu! when you find it first you can tell me all about it :)
ReplyDeletewell, when I read my earlier comment I don't think I conveyed strongly enough how I wish I missed home :-) or missed something!
ReplyDeleteThis is more because I've never experienced a permanent feeling of home.
I must say I truly enjoyed your post. It really felt good :-*
Welcome to the sense of dislocation. After 15 yrs I am still searching for a base. Like you say maybe home is a state of mind we are all traveling towards?
ReplyDeleteI sometime wonder if part of it is triggered by moving so far from our birth home.