HOME 🏡
WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?
Is a home just the place you happen to live at this moment or is there more to it? This is a topic that has kept coming back to me for the most of my life, so, I suppose it is time to put some of those thoughts into words.
“He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What do you connect with home? A country, a specific place, a certain house, certain things, certain people? All of it or something completely different?
We all have most likely heard people say and possibly know the song; “Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home”. It is definitely one way to look at the concept of home and more often than not that was how I felt.
I have often envied people when they have a place to call home with roots that connect them. I have never in my life had that one certain place that I really called home and that truly felt like it. The closest thing to a feeling of home comes up when I go to the UK. I only lived there for two years as a child and perhaps it is due to it being years with beautiful memories. I was moved around quite a bit as a child and even if I lived in Germany for most of my life I do not have any real roots here. I tried to count the times I moved in my life and if I did not miss anything it was 22 times in all.
“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” — Maya Angelou
So it is probably not much of a surprise that home meant to me being with people I love and care for. For the longest time, this was where my children were. Now that they have both moved out and started their own lives, I am revisiting what home is. I am luckily surrounded by people I care for and who care for me.
“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” — Benjamin Franklin
Home is where love is, where you can be yourself without judgment, where you are loved, and where there is no need for false pretense. Someone once said to me that I was their sanctuary and they probably thought this a compliment. It made me incredibly sad as at that time I wanted to be their home.
You can fall in love with people who feel like home. When this happens, you should probably take a step back as they could just be true reminders of everything that you experienced growing up in your home around your parents and your family.
Maybe they even are a lot like your parents and the way they are treating and behaving around you is triggering those same feelings, the same anxiety in your body you felt at that time, which you are possibly now processing as butterflies. Often that fear of the past is now showing up as excitement because it feels so familiar.
So, it can be good to be cautious when they feel like home because home does not always mean safety. Home can mean a lot of turbulence. Home can mean so many things. I suppose you do have to ask yourself what your home stands for? What are you calling home? And is that the type of home you want to live in?
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” — Robert Frost
I never made a secret out of the fact that I was never really at home in Germany and that I felt I did not belong here. When my children and I moved to Bavaria, I made the promise, that we would not move again until they finished school and had moved out, and I kept that promise. The main reason was to give my children the home and the stability I did not have growing up, and it was not a sacrifice but a true joy. I never regretted this promise once, as I hope it gave my children a sense of home, even if they now live in England and Austria. It was a good decision, and I am truly happy I made it.
Home can also be things that surround you, that give you a sense of comfort, familiarity, and safety. Things that have been with you for a long time and that have traveled with you throughout your life.
“A home without books is a body without soul.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Books are definitely something that give me a sense of home or at least a homey feeling. But there is so much more to it I suppose and it can mean different things at different times, always depending where you are in life.
“When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood.” — Sam Ewing
If I had to define what home means to me today, it would be that wonderful feeling of inner peace and feeling at home with myself.
🎶My Song for you
Is this stunningly beautiful song by Simply Red - Home!
For more good music, go to this Spotify playlist where you can find all the songs from the Change & Evolve Letters!
📚My Poem for you
Is this wonderful little-known poem by John Clare (1793-1864)
Home
Muses no more what ere ye be In fancys pleasures roam But sing (by truth inspir’d) wi’ me The pleasures of a home Nor vain extreems I sigh for here No Lordlings costly dome ‘Be thine the choice’ says reason ‘where ‘Contentment crowns a home’ O! fate to give my bosom peace Unsettl’d as I roam To bid my restless wanderings cease & fix me in a home A evening cot days toils to cheer When tir’d I ceas’d to roam & lovley Ema smileing near O happy happy home How oft the tramping Vagrant sighs (By fate ordain’d to roam) For labours best & happiest joys The comforts of a home & O when labour night descries When ceas’d to toil & roam What joys will in his bosom rise To think he owns a home
👀Impression
Just a few of my favourite poetry books - always a bit of home…
Where is your home or what do you call home?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments, leave a ❤️ or send me a message. I always love hearing from you.
Wishing you a wonderful day wherever you are.
Yours
Tanja 🤗
Change & Evolve and feel free to get in touch
Tanja, I've been terribly remiss, sorry - I've been reading but not commenting for ages. Twenty two time though!! That's not on, must have been unimaginably difficult for you. I've been very lucky. My mum stayed in the house I was born in until about two years ago! I also have a home offshore, and that moves around, bit I really appreciate staying on a project for a while and making friends. There may not be "forever" homes in real life, but I hope you find something close enough.
Tanja - what a great post and wonderful quotes that you have shared. What a challenging upbringing you had - 22 moves but interesting that England somehow felt like home. I wonder if it still does? For me, as I thought about it, the fact that I have a family who came to the farm where we live in 1872, is a key story of what home is - there is something about the land itself and has a sense of history and previous generations. Home should be a place of rest but often when there are difficult relationships, it can be a place of trauma and conflict. The great saying "Home is where the heart is" has long been part of my understanding and I did a little research to find out its origin. Here is what I found:
https://wordhistories.net/2021/08/24/home-where-heart/
"The earliest occurrence of this phrase that I have found is from an unsigned poem published in the 1829 issue of The Winter’s Wreath: A Collection of Original Contributions in Prose and Verse (London: Published by George B. Whittaker; for George Smith, Liverpool – [October 1828])"
The poem is quite lovely:
"’Tis Home where’er the Heart is.
’Tis Home where’er the heart is;
Where’er its loved ones dwell,
In cities or in cottages,
Thronged haunts or mossy dell:
The heart’s a rover ever,
And thus on wave and wild,
The maiden with her lover walks,
The mother with her child.
’Tis bright where’er the heart is;
Its fairy spells can bring
Fresh fountains to the wilderness,
And to the desert—spring.
There are green isles in each ocean,
O’er which affection glides;
And a haven on each shore,
When Love’s the star that guides.
’Tis free where’er the heart is;
Nor chains, nor dungeon dim,
May check the mind’s aspirings,
The spirit’s pealing hymn!
The heart gives life its beauty,
Its glory and its power,—
’Tis sunlight to its rippling stream,
And soft dew to its flower."