Home again

After two weeks around where I was born, I know just how right Mr. Wolfe was ... or is. He might have said it a while ago, but it's as valid a statement as ever. Truths, should there be such a thing, are eternal, or so I'm told.

It makes you wonder about concepts like "home". What is that, anyway? Home is where you hang your hat, say some. Home is where the heart is, maintain others. I did notice in my conversations with the family that no one buys a house anymore. They only buy homes. But didn't someone else live there before? It makes me wonder: is "home" a place or a feeling?

I think I'm going to go with the latter. Home is, to my mind, simply where you feel "at home". That sounds more like a tautology than a truth, but how else could it be, really? My kids, for example, were born one place, grew up in another, and are living entirely somewhere else. If you ask them where "home" is, what are they going to say? My guess is that home to them is where they feel most at home. In today's overly mobile society, they are more the norm than those who, like my father, are born and grow up somewhere (that is, within a limited radius of miles) and who will die there as well.

It may seem trivial, but if you go back to where you were born and visit family and old friends, the question comes up more than once; namely, "How does it feel to be home again?" But am I? Am I home or am I simply there where I was born? I can't answer for anyone else, but for me, the answer is home is where I'll be when the vacation is over.