Home is defined as “a place of residence, shelter, or refuge. While a house refers to the physical building, a home is a deeply personal concept representing belonging, comfort, security, and a space where domestic life and emotional attachments are centered.”
What got me thinking about this is a quote from a book I just finished reading that reminded me a lot of when Dorothy says “There’s no place like home” in the Wizard of Oz. The book is The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson.
On page 333, one of the main characters/narrators of the book, Daisy Flowers says, “Maybe home is something you can’t run from, a place you find yourself searching for even after you think you’ve gotten away. You look for it in every town or city, apartment or house—but it’s slippery, shifty. Because home is a feeling and the people and place that inspire that feeling. It’s about their acceptance and your belonging, whether you feel conflicted about that or not, whether they always like your or not. You can’t change where and who you will be. But that place and those people always call your name, longing for you—and you, in turn, long for them.”
There are people in this world who travel a lot, but I bet they still have a place they come home to, a place where they feel that belonging. There are people who move away from where they grew up, but often still feel the pull of that place and the people they know. There are other people, people like me, who are very much rooted to a place, a place that no matter where we are, we always call home. Because it is where we feel safe, where we belong. I get that from my Grandpa Wood. He was that way too, always liked to be in his own bed when the day ended.
Home can be a bigger concept like a country, I suppose, but it seems like it is something more personal and closer to “home” for each of us. It may be the place where we grew up and the people we have known forever that calls to us. It may be a new place we ventured off to where we made new friends and a new life for ourselves. It may be we are still searching for that place we call home. It may not always be comfortable and there may sometimes be conflict, but as Dorothy said there’s no place like home.