The idea of HOME. For Mayes, it was her comfort, her place, her childhood beginnings steeped in tradition, sunshine and red clay, crawfish-filled backwaters, and Southern Hospitality.
For me...HOME is a place I carry inside myself. The ability to center and make a home where ever I managed to land.
I think, LIFE gives us our definition of HOME.
I have had houses I literally fled, and homes I have cried over with their loss.
I made my escape from a physically abusive childhood house.
Before I left my ex-husband (also physically abusive) we had moved 7 times in less than 3 years.
None of them were homes.
Only houses.
When Bill and I did the land contract on the lake and watched our home be built from the ground up and then the builder (who also was the contract holder) wanted to build us another house...a different house...but would not sell outright the home my husband and I had lived in and raised our children in. It was a classic bait and switch. We moved instead, no longer trusting him.
When I lost my Nursing career (thanks to cancer) and we were buying on contract another home; we could no longer afford the $750. monthly payments, and everything else with three teenage children and only Bill's job...we couldn't even afford to maintain it...so yeah...bye bye home.
When we moved to probably the most COMFORTABLE home either of us had ever lived in...The Rose Cottage...a 640 foot rental cottage on the edge of a hayfield...Bill got diagnosed in months with leukemia...he lived a little more than another year. After his death, I stayed one more year. Then I realized that it was too far away from anything with no daily public transportation to realistically stay...and the owners were trying to sell it, anyway.
Then, I found The Den.
But well before this, hopefully, final move I had learned to create HOME. To carry it inside. People that have lived in one place for 20-30 years could probably never understand this survival adaptation. To be able to Bloom (and thrive) Where Ever You Are PLANTED.
Home to me is quiet and comfort. It is uncluttered surroundings and a pantry full of food. It is a few important items and not cluttered wall and shelves. It is a feeling of peace and happiness and contentment inside as opposed to pinning your happiness on external places and circumstances. It is relaxing and a retreat.
I am at HOME where ever I am.
Here. In a hotel room...or a tent.
Right at this moment
HOME is where the CAT is...
More Anon...