Maybe Home is a Thought, Not a Place

Saturday is the day; flying back to the city whether I'm ready or not.  So much has changed since I left New York.  While I probably would have liked to have been back in the city a little sooner, these weeks home have provided much needed time for reflection.  I think, for me at least, I can't be sure where I'm going until I know where I have been.  And you can't know where you have been until you turn around a look back for a minute.

The idea of "home" has been something I've thought about so much over the last few weeks, months even.  For a majority of my life I lived at the same tri-level going to the same schools.  Home was all I knew.  Now, I have many homes.  My first new "home" was West Lafayette, Indiana.  My second was Florence.  Third, (and yes I count it because it was such a moving experience -- no pun intended) Paris.  Fourth, New York City.  Each home has it own scents, habits, memories, friends, and every home I have made on my own.  Building nests of comfort in these cities which I never considered the impact of abandoning each.  Unable to tend for these nests while building a new one.  How can we abandon these homes? These works of art?

There is a song I first heard so many years ago, I believe shortly after I first moved away from home. The one line which caught my attention was the single line which I could empathize with. 

"Maybe home is a thought, not a place; you can move and still be safe."

The idea that my home was a strictly an artistic representation of all feelings which comfort me, comforted me further in a time of misunderstanding. That was all I understood when I first heard this song.  I attached this phrase to my memory like a deer tick and ran it through my mind whenever I felt anxious.

But now, since my home has expanded to so many more faces and rooms and cities, I found that this entire song is my anthem.

"I wanna steal from you only you, make room for you."  I take what I want from these physical homes, to create a room of my own.  As a world traveler, I desire these new boundaries, the expansions. 

"I am the thief who leaves it behind: the moon and the window."  But as a traveler, I can leave it behind as well.  The moon -- the intangibles such as the scents and the memories.  The window -- the tangibles such as the actual physical bedrooms I stayed in, the addresses which once belonged to me.  I'm the thief who leaves it all behind.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.  I'm heading back to NYC to continue mass robberies. 

Here's the full song: "Souvenir" by The Duke Spirit YOUTUBE LINK

FLORENCE

PARIS

NEW YORK CITY