Home.

I love this window in my HOME. It seems to embrace the outside world in its arms.

I have been thinking lately about the idea of home and the word we use for it, often interchangeable:

HOUSE.

I think the two words are totally different and hold two different meanings.

I own a house. My home is wherever I hang my hat so to speak. Home is such a sweet little four-letter word. House is well, just a word. It just doesn’t hold a lot of emotion for me.

Does everyone feel that way?

Home is a smell. I have this counter spray left over from Christmas that smells, like Christmas. Like home really. It’s March now and I still can’t give up that smell. It reminds me of all the joys of Christmas lights and pine needles and soft music playing in the kitchen all season long.

Home is a feeling. I moved about this time last year. And I love this HOUSE. But more importantly I love this home. It feels safe. Safe is a funny word to call this home because not one person in Greenville would disagree that it is in a less than “safe” area of town. But here’s the truth, I have never felt so connected to my neighbors. And that makes me feel safe.

Home is a sense of belonging. I live on about two acres, and I have never felt closer to the world around me. How is that? In my last home I could wave good night to the neighbors all of eight feet away, but I never felt that sense of closeness I longed for. That feeling I have here. Last year, we had a Christmas party and decided to invite everyone on our street. A lot of them came. Just mingling in with our family and friends like we had been a part of each other lives forever.

So here is a crazy story.

I remember talking to someone who worked for Obama on his initial election campaign. And she said her only task was to go around America and ask two questions. (Sorry if you have heard this story before but I find it so startling simple and stunning and beautiful.)

The two questions were:

1.     What are you most afraid of?

2.     And do you know your neighbor?

That was all the former President wanted to know to help him build a deeper understanding of the state of our country. Isn’t that stunning?  Think anyone of our current candidates are asking those kinds of smart questions now?

Oh good grief, I’ll try not to digress and start talking politics. Let me go regroup and go back to my orginal thought…

In my new neighborhood, we have a local group meeting each month and I love going. Mostly I love seeing the diversity of this area contained in one single church basement. That gathering is a reminder to me that at our core, is one simple thing:

We love our homes, large and grand or simple and in need of a few repairs. We all treasure this thing we call HOME.  

If you’re lucky enough to have a place in the world you call HOME, you are wealthy beyond words.

I know I am.

So, here’s the little things that make a my house a home – sweet tea in the fridge, a fire pit in the backyard, the little love notes that hang with random magnets on the fridge, sun streaming through my favorite window, fresh flowers in a pink vase and daffodils in the side yard in February.

Home is a sacred word. I feel so hard sometimes I must turn the world and the news completely off to get grounded. I feel for war torn Ukraine and Israel and Gaza in a way I can’t explain. Perhaps I’m hurting for all the multitudes of people who have lost that beautiful gift, that feeling, that safety of HOME.

So, tell me. What makes your house or rented room or favorite hiking spot a HOME? I’d love to hear from you…

OX, Robbin