The nature of "home"

[labelleizzy]

Bit pensive today. It's quiet, just the laundry thumping round, and I've got lots and lots to do or that I should be doing, but... But.

I wonder what home is.

Part of this has to do with the fact that I am indeed, technically homeless.
I mean, god bless Laura for taking me in. But it's not MY home. It's hers.

Is home some random apartment I don't yet have possession of?
Is home a domicile at all, or is it as large as a city I know my way around... and am comfortable travelling thru?
Is home the Starry Plough, or the Fair Oaks Tudor Faire?
Is home the living room of a dear friend who's having me over for dinner and a heart-to-heart talk?

One former lover and still dear friend talked about places wrapped around people. For me, Aberystwyth is more than a medieval Welsh town, it's Spiky John and Pete, Big John and Andrew, Shasta and Rachael, Sarah, Stephen, the girls in the dorm, my teachers and the shopkeepers, the other students we'd play billiards with, go to the pub or the football club/dance hall.

Berkeley is still Kevin and Ammy, though neither of them has lived there in over 2 years (?).

Sacramento is my mom (and dad, though he's dead), my sister and her husband and my nephew, my high-school friends, and many of my pagan friends and Faire friends.

I'm in this weird limbo-space. Or a weird gypsy space, perhaps.
Heather Alexander's CD, "A Gypsy's Home" has a title song with the lyrics
Don't tell a gypsy she has no home...
My road is wide and my sky is tall
And before I die I will see it all...

At the moment, I don't feel like I'm supposed to put down permanent roots.
I feel like those plants my mom keeps in vases and glasses for YEARS before she puts them in dirt, if ever.

The potential of my current life is strange and wonderful. There is no fixed horizon, no concrete path.
It's a beautiful, terrifying thing.
But I won't "settle," not ever again.

Comments

[wintergr3y.livejournal.com]

My home is wherever my books are up in my shelves.

[labelleizzy.livejournal.com]

In that case, as long as I remember "my" book titles, home is wherever I can access what I need for that "this book is an old friend" reassurance and rereading experience. So I don't require "my" books, necessarily.
And, I'm discovering that living sparely is damned attractive.
A week out of a duffel bag at Lark, with new adventures to be had, new friends to acquaint myself with, new music, new dances - it's a reinforcement of my gradually growing conviction that I don't need the THINGS for reassurance and comfort. I need the people.