There's no place like home

I have struggled for a month for ideas for a conversation on coming home. Which I find a little odd as I've written two short stories on home comings, and awhile back I wrote this little ode on the indescribable joy of returning home.

I've no idea why I have this block.

I suspect, it may be because we are about to move. Move out while we get some building done. We are leaving the neighbourhood for six months - and that will turn my little world and daily commitments into chaos. The boy that has started walking home, will have to be picked up again; the daughter will need planning and additional time to drop off and pick up, and then there's the time to fill in between commitments, as we won't be able to duck home for afternoon tea and to get changed before heading on our way again.

Our home is currently like a control tower, where logistics are arranged and the blips on the screen are juggled with care as they roam in their orbits. This will all continue, but there will be additional trips and a more difficult juggling routine. For me, a greater level of stress as we all adjust to the new location.

There will also be the packing - the constant requests for loved items not in the temporary housing. The lifetime of possessions, not important enough to travel with us, but wanted and missed all the same.

There will be a lack of space. All of us crammed into one tiny living room (and kitchen and dining). We will have no where to go, to read quietly. No garden to hide in with a book in the sunshine, no room to watch tv away from the kids, nowhere that music can be played without disturbing others.

Ultimately, it's cost effective, and it's only six months. We'll return to some lovely additions to our already beautiful home, and the siblings will no longer have to share. I need to keep reminding myself of this.

I guess I'm scared. Scared of the changes to our home. Scared that we're making a mistake. Scared of the cost and the debt. Scared that the feel of our house will be destroyed.

Of course, a house is just a building. I was reminded of this when I went back to see my childhood home recently. It looked so small compared to how I remembered it. This is ironic, as it is actually much bigger than where we live now. I remember it through the eyes of my childhood, and it was the whole world to me for such a long time.

A new house replaces the old home, and the fondness grows with the happiness experienced there. The building is irrelevant, it's the feelings you bring with you. This is why you can't return home, because you never really leave. You bring it with you, and create a new one, where ever you may be, no matter how transient the time frame is. That home is now your home and the buildings of the past are just that, buildings crammed into your memory.

"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time." Hermann Hesse

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