No Place Like It 4/26/2020

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

As I sit here trying to think of something of substance to write for today’s blog, I am struggling.  I am not at a loss for a topic. I have a topic but it’s so broad it’s the equivalent to being told to go on a treasure hunt and having your hunting grounds only narrowed by hemisphere.  How and where do I even begin to broach this subject? 

Lost in my thoughts, fishing around in my brain to offer you something worthwhile I am only coming up with one word.  It may only have four letters but it is by no means small.  It can encompass the entire gamut of human emotion.  It is simple but complex.  It is both difficult and soothingly easy all at once.  How do I put something that is so much, into the confines of the written word?

Home.

It can be the epicenter of an existence; the foundation an entire life is built upon.  It can be the one bastion of stability that keeps a person from going over the edge.  It could simply be a set of walls that epitomize familiarity and comfort.  It is a place. It is a feeling. It is an idea. What in the world have I bitten off to write about? I sense it’s going to be quite the exercise in chewing.

While thinking about all that home is, I am distracted by the view out the window.  This has been the story of my life since as far back as I can remember.  Looking out the window is all it takes and my expert level daydreaming kicks in with a vengeance.

Outside my home a storm has just passed. While the sky maintains its hues of a menacing shade of slate, in one distant western corner, gold is seeping through the cracks.  The air is filled with cooled mist but the darkened clouds are warming even though the sunset is mostly obscured.  The whole scene glows amber as a small piece of sky becomes painted and the clouds break.

Focus Jennifer.  What does your staring off into the sunset have to do with home?  The greys of the clouds have evolved to a pleasant shade of lavender now.  What am I supposed to garner from God’s exquisite artwork?  And just like that, the colors fade away just like the light.  The shadows deepen and the details of leaf and bloom slip into the darkness.  The only ray of light now comes from within my windows.  So it is. My home is now the source of the glow lending itself to the landscape.

There is so much I could say about the place I call home right now. Currently, standing beside me there is a tall for her almost 4 years of age blonde pleading with me to dance with her. She insists I can just dance for a minute and then I can get back to my work.  I oblige.  Big blue eyes and a drawn out “pleeease” can break down rather significant walls.  Know that as you read there was a pause for some dancing just now.

After our dance, I sit back down to this keyboard and different stories people have told me of home come to mind.  I remember one specifically my mother telling me. When she was growing up she always thought her mother’s favorite piece of chicken was the back because that’s what she always ate. It was much later that she realized that with a family of 10 to feed with a single chicken that most assuredly her mother wasn’t so much a lover of chicken back but she was putting into practice the time honored tradition of motherly sacrifice.  My mother’s eyes have a certain light in them when she tells that story.  For her that story feels like home.

When my father talks of playing in peanut fields and coon hunting there is something about the tone in his voice that drips of nostalgia. His mind has gone home.  He smiles with a wistfulness that only those who haven’t been home in a long time know.

My husband remembers his Granny when he thinks of home. Every detail of her comes to him from the smell of her strawberry cake to the way she could ever so gently guilt you into cleaning your plate despite how full you were.  But Granny is no longer in that kitchen.  Sometimes little pieces of home are taken when someone leaves this mortal coil.  How amazing that such a powerful thing can sometimes be so delicate.

Sometimes home comes in a scent. It can be a taste.  It can be just the particular notes of that one special song. It can be as expansive as the way morning mist rises off the slope of the foothills of the Appalachians or as intimate as the way a loved one smiles as they see you enter a room. As you can tell by the rabbit trails I am taking, I believe I shall fail tremendously at putting any words down that do my topic justice.

For me right now, home is nestled in brick and stone, planted in the midst of an Alabama meadow surrounded by oaks and dogwood.  But that isn’t REALLY home.  That would be like trying to put all of nature’s wonder in a box.  Home is so much more.  More than sight or smell or feeling or structure. It is more of the deepest and biggest things. It is also the small quietness of stillness and comfort; the simplicity of joy.

I suppose writing anything succinct on this topic was destined for failure from the beginning. I am quite certain that you have not gleaned very much from my wild goose chase of introspection. I think however, that I may have come to a conclusion.  As cliché as it may be, home very truly is where the heart is.  It is at times agonizing and also intoxicatingly beautiful, letting our heart live outside our body like that. It can be both peaceful contentment and inexplicable chaos.  Home is every crevice of the heart and every emotion it can hold.  Whatever it is that we hold dearest, whatever we cherish, that is home; wherever it lands, wherever it resides. It is the many pieces of our heart that make something home. It is as glorious and as difficult and as wonderful as that.