Home!
Home, what is it? Home is one of those places that is a
place but also a feeling. Let me ramble a bit with this. Home is often the
place we hang our hat and coat inside the door. Yet, we call some places home
on a temporary thing as we travel or move about. I add that home can be more
than one physical place at the same time. Yes, it is a feeling that we belong
too.
I have lived many places over the years. Some I called home
and others were a mere stop and reload. Thirty-ish years in southern Utah at
various locations. Some of those years far enough back that I didn’t remember
much, except maybe a rock covered house and a cool irrigation ditch. Other
places that I have lived there lasting memories. You just can’t remove the
small town in someone. I have packed and moved a bunch and ya know home then
becomes a new thing. Packed up and moved four times in one year a few years
back and ya get the “New Home” feeling a bit scrambled.
Home can be that place you raise a six pack of kids in a
couple of decades. More than just the house you live in but the street you’re
on and the people living around ya. Those memories of home as a place and a
feeling there fill a large basket. I have been told since then “We sure miss
you” and “your home isn’t the same without you in it”. The people there are
hard to forget but the new people you meet are great also. We (my family)
consider it home in that area for the memories and that a few of my kids have
stayed there for a season. Some of those memories are of a nice place called
“Benson Creek”.
Many of those places along the path of life that you just
stop and reload span the country for the west coast to the gulf coast and in
between. Some felt like home because of the people I met there.
Yes, I will tell ya that home is where your Mama is! I tell
ya even though my mama would now and again send me to the willow patch to cut
my own switch she does have a feel of home being around her. Maybe not just
your mama but grandma, aunties, cousins, and past friends. Maybe that is where
ya attended some schooling in life or for some you got schooled a bit. Maybe
that could well include your first date, first kiss, or even your first “gonna
die of love break up”. Days spent hiking, fishing, hunting, camping,
rappelling, and jumping bicycles built from the junk-yard off a six-foot ramp.
Horse swings in the park and a slide that got so hot ya scorched it sliding
down it. Even a few nights skating in the “Pod”. Not to be left out an Independence
Day celebrations like no other.
Home will often change with time, place, size and feel. Home
could be a house of four thousand square feet with closets so deep ya get lost
to a comfy little house just over a thousand square feet you can clean in a day
after the grandkids visit. Love those little hands and feet. Home is where my
heart is and it is truly with my awesome wife and family, no matter the
location we may be at, at the time. Truly, if you have food to eat, a roof over
your head, and people that love you then you are blessed and at home.
