HOME

I'm obsessed with the idea of home. My favorite songs are either titled 'Home,' or distinctly about the idea of a "home." Even one that I mistakenly thought they were saying "my sweet home," but apparently it's "my sweet heart." This of course is Lumineers- Ho Hey. I stand by my lyrics anyway, they are better: "I belong with you, you belong with me, in my sweet home." Another fav is Home by Philip Phillips- "the trouble it might drag you down. If you get lost, you can always be found, just know you're not alone. 'Cuz I'm gonna make this place your home."
Isn't that what we all want? To be found? And more importantly to have a home with someone we love? To BELONG to someone, sharing that sweet sweet home of yours, together.
My favorite movie still continues to be Garden State. I love it for it's quirkiness, and honesty and openness to the feelings and awakenings to life and to the people that come into your life and not disregarding them. One of my favorite lines is when the main character played by Zach Braff, who also wrote and directed the movie, says: "You know that point in your life where you realize that the house you grew up in, really isn't your home anymore? All of a sudden, even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone...you feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe its this rite of passage. You won't ever have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start. It's like a cycle. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place." I remember when I first saw it. I rented it at the end of 2005 after everything had fallen apart in Colorado and I had moved home to Texas, after my 2 year stint there. I watched it twice in the two days and bought the Soundtrack the same day I rented it. Bought it shortly after that, too. It came into my life at just the right time. When home no longer existed for me. Sure I had a "home" where my parents and little sister lived. But that hadn't felt like home in years. I had been in college for 4 years and in my own apartment in Dallas for 2 and then in Colorado Springs for 2 more. What was home for me? In the two years I lived in Colorado Springs, I lived in 5 different places. A family, newlyweds, single girls, a crazy old lady and an engaged girl. I had literally seen and lived it all! But none of them were real "homes." I had found a group of friends in Colorado who had all "missed this same imaginary place." They were my family, until they found their own real families.

Now I have a HOUSE that I love. It's an actual house this time. No efficiency apartment for me! I'm in a duplex house that is the biggest place I've lived in, on my very own. I have a back yard and a big front porch. I have my own washer and dryer and 6 windows and 3 doors which all have windows on them too. Currently they are opened to let the cool air cycle through. It's amazing, and I don't want to leave it ever. Unless it was for a real person. A shot at a real home. Then I would leave it in a heartbeat. I'd be out the door if someone was ready to offer themselves as home to me.

"Home is where the heart is." A saying that means, wherever you are, wherever you are giving and receiving love...that's a home. If you live alone, then how could this be a home?
Music is probably my favorite thing about life. Actually I am certain it is. If I ever have a daughter, I am naming her Calliope or Callie for short; which means beautiful voice, or music. It's also a type of musical instrument, seen on those boats out on the Mississippi river that play that tug boat music through the pipes, with the smoke. You know what I'm talking about. That's how much I love music. Ingrid Michaelson says it best in her song titled- Are we there yet. "They say that home is where the heart is. I guess I haven't found my home. And we keep driving around in circles, afraid to call this place our home... They say you're not really somebody, until somebody else loves you. Well I am waiting to make somebody somebody soon." Aren't we all waiting for this? Well, some how found it. In a significant other, or maybe a child. Some thought they had it, but it turned out it was a fairytale, without a happy ending, and they want their story rewritten or scratched and started again. Whatever the case, for me, I am forever contemplating the idea of Home. Because I can't figure it out. It's aloof. It's a magical place with unicorns and cotton candy clouds. It seems unattainable,  just out of my reach. And yet at the same time, it seems to have only one answer. And I can't get the numbers to add up.
I like what Jason Mraz said in an episode of Storytellers. He said, "Home is a state of mind. Have peace in your mind; that's home." He said this because he is always traveling and a home can't be 4 walls for him. But I like that- "state of mind." I wish I could fully comprehend that and live in that mindset. Live in perfect peace. All the time. Wouldn't that be nice? He also did add- "and you can choose to go back there anytime." So even though it's impossible all the time to be at peace and at home in that "state of mind," you can go back there whenever you are ready; whenever you want. You just throw on some red sparkly shoes and click your heels 3 times and repeat after me- "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." Wait. This only works if where you are now is OZ, and where you want to be is in the real world.
But, regardless, I guess home is what you make of it. My home is filled with a lot of owls. Stuffed animal owls, figurines, paintings, ect. My home is filled to the brim with things I have created with my bare hands, and with my open heart and creative mind and spirit. I love my home. It is all mine and it is perfect. Not everyone can say that their place is completely their touch, their design, their sole imagination and invention. No one else's input had to be considered in the making of this home, and that's a pretty sweet place to be living in.

But it sure would be nice to have a home where someone thought of you like this: "holy-moley
me-oh-my, you're the apple of my eye, girl I never loved one like you. Man oh man you're my best friend, I'll scream it to the nothingness. there ain't nothing that I need. Well, hot & heavy, pumpkin pie, chocolate candy, Jesus Christ.  There ain't nothin' please me more than you.
Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I'm with you..."

-Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros