Just the other day I was asked the question of what home was to me?
Take a moment and consider the question for yourself in your life and your experience with the meaning of home.
What images come to mind when thinking about home? is it a building or a room or a place of your childhood? is it friendly faces of family and friends? What is home to you?
Now better yet consider why you are seeing the images that you are seeing.
When I was asked this question the thing that filtered through my mind was the faces of my family and friends in Lancaster County, Pa and beyond. I did not see a front door or a front porch swing. I did not see a moment of childhood in the back yard or in the attic. I did not see a physical home. No walls, no doors, no windows, no home. Those child hood memories, many have escaped me. For me it is just a blur of friendly faces growing up around me...the siblings, the cousins, and family friends. Ghosts in the fog, no sense of time or space, there they were though, surrounding me at every step.
The fact is each persons life experience dictates and is dictating to them the meaning of home. Those that have married have a different perspective than those that have not. Those that have children are a different perspective than those that have not. Every person sees the world through a tinted glass that no one else has the opportunity to look through. Life experiences, struggles, and triumphs all have made you and I the person that we are today. The reason that home is a group of faces rather than actual building for me is, at least how I see it, because I moved a lot while growing up. Rather than living in one house my whole life, as some, I have lived in more houses than I can count or remember. This fact is why I believe that I see faces rather than a place. My family and my friends stay close to me.
Home...it is truly where the heart is...whether you see four walls, a door, and a couple windows or maybe you see more.
Home
