Home, home . . . sweet, sweet, home . . .

 

Neuschweinstein Castle, Germany

By Daniel Weissenhorn 

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there
Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home!

An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again
The birds singing gaily that came at my call
And gave me the peace of mind dearer than all
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, there's no place like home! 

~John Howard Payne

 What makes a house a home? I've been thinking about that this morning.  A home is many things to many people. I am not sure there is a definitive answer.  To some it might be the bricks and mortar that compose its structure, to others it might be the people that reside within that structure. To some it may be both.  

A home is a place of refuge.  A place where you can go to feel safe, where you should feel safe.  Its a place where you keep your most personal belongings and where you can feel accepted and loved. A person's home very much tells a story about them, as individuals and as families.   

The most comfortable homes are those which we feel an emotional connection to, or a sense of belonging. This comes from the people who reside within its walls, not in the physical things which it contains.

 

The Manor House, Castle Combe, England 

There are some incredibly beautiful places, houses in the world.  Situated in beautiful environments, filled with great treasures, but does that make them a home??  When I lived in the UK, I was able to visit a lot of stately homes via the National Trust.  These were national treasures, many having been refurbished to their former glory, and open for visitors to traipse through.  We are interested, it seems, very much so in seeing how other people live and have lived.

I loved being able to walk through Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. The grounds and gardens were beautiful, and it was fascinating to see the history contained within it's walls. One could almost imagine Anne as a child playing in the cobbled courtyard, but it had more of a historic feeling rather than a home feeling.  

Some of my favorite places to visit were the homes of  Prime Minister Winston Churchill and author Rudyard Kipling.  When you visited them, you had a real sense of who they were as people, their personalities very much being visible in the things they chose to surround themselves with.

 

 

(source)

Houses can be filled with antiquities and treasures, but that doesn't make them homes. You can fill a house with the finest things that money can buy, but that won't make it a home. "Home," is a feeling which simply cannot be bought. 

It is an intimate relationship that a person has with the space they live in, and the things they choose to fill it with, and more often than not, the people they choose to share that space with. 

 

(source) 

Homes have a heartbeat and a smell, most being very individual to the persons that reside there.  An old friend of mine was an herbologist and her home smelt very much like garlic, but it wasn't an unpleasant smell in the least. 

A great deal of money is spent on an industry that does nothing but create lush smells for us to "decorate" our homes with.  I have candles and they smell lovely, my favorite one being Pumpkin Spice Latte.  To me it smells like home sweet home, like someone's been baking.  Like the warm lap of my grandmother. 

 

(source) 

A house can be a home, but a home can't be a house, is not just a house. You can live and be in houses, that do not feel like homes. That have no sense of intimacy.  That do not tell you a story, or make you feel a story about the people who reside there. It is possible to feel at "home" in someone else's house.  Because home is very much a feeling, rather than a physical construct. Comfortable.  A place which makes a person feels welcome and like they belong  . . . 

You can have the most beautiful house in the world, and fill it with the most beautiful things, but it may still not feel like a home  . . . 

Home is a feeling that tells the story of "us." It resembles who we are, how we choose to live our lives, what's important to us, what we cherish in life, who we cherish in life. Its about emotional connection  . . .  and a sense of comfort.  And often it is a feeling you bring with you. 

 

 

(Source) 

In my previous marriage, I moved home many times.  He was in the military and I often said I felt like a turtle for those 22 years, carrying my home on my back from place to place. I totally understood the concept of a home being more than just the four walls, but rather the spirit residing within it.

Home is the smell of bread baking and the sound of children playing.  The way the light flickers across a wall at different times of the day . . .  the way the sky looks through the front window at the end of day when the sun is setting.  It is happiness, contentment . . .  calm . . . 

 

(source) 

It is more about who we are  . . .  than where we are.  

This is an exciting phase of my life now  . . .  in all likelihood the last phase of my life.  I find myself at the age of 65 with pretty much a blank canvas.  How and what I choose to fill my house with, to build and fill my home with, is very much up to me.  

There are times that my heart really aches over the things I have had to leave behind.  I carried all of my life with me to England 21 years ago, and then built very much upon that. Leaving in the way I had to to come back to Canada, meant leaving a great deal of that behind, and its been a very painful experience.  Most of the time I don't think about it, or I try not to, but every once in a while my heart can't help it and I will think about something that I was forced to leave  . . . 

A wooden birdhouse that I painted with cherries back in the late 1980's, the wooden babushka breadboards I painted in the early 1980's . . . trinkets, figurines, etc. that my children had given me through the years, gifts from friends, my mother  . . .  all gone, all irreplaceable . . .  and it hurts like you wouldn't believe.  And I sometimes feel angry about that, but mostly I just feel sad and so I try not to think about it if I can . . . 

Mostly I remind myself that home is a feeling . . .  not a place or a thing.  And it is that feeling that you carry with you, no matter where or how far you wander . . .  that makes a house a home.

A thought to carry with you  . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

*There is a little house somewhere, 

surrounded by green cedar boughs,

Where we are eating oatcakes, with honey,

dipping them in our tea three times for good luck.

Somewhere I am sitting with you in stillness.

~Phoebe Wahl•。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。* 。

 

In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Peanut Butter Cornflake Bars.  Small batched.  Crisp and chewy and deliciously no bake. 

Have a wonderful Sunday. Be happy. Be safe.  Be blessed. Know always that  . . . 

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⊰✿░G░O░D⊰✿⊰L░O░V░E░S⊰✿⊰░Y░O░U░⊰✿

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And I do too!