Home can be a building, a person, a time of day, or a state you only notice when it's gone. Ask when you are home, and watch which of those arrives first. Then watch what the question does to the others.
Where do I feel at home? When did I last feel at ease in my own skin? Can I be home somewhere and still be elsewhere in my head? Why do I feel most myself when nobody needs anything from me?
I have sat in my own living room and not been there. The door was locked, the lights were on, and I was somewhere three weeks ahead. When was the last time I arrived in the place I was standing?
Maybe home is a row of small rooms, each one a part of me that gets visited on a schedule. Which doors do I use every day, and which have I walked past for years? Who is allowed in each one?
Some days it is a person. Some days it is the hour before anyone else is awake. What do those have in common that the address doesn't?
The body usually knows first. Shoulders that drop, a breath that gets to the bottom of the lungs, hands that stop gripping. Where do I feel it, and what was I doing a moment before?
There is also the version where I'm only home when something is going well. Is that home, or a good review? And what if the place I keep trying to get back to is the one I haven't left?
I wrote about the thing so many of us keep reaching for, and what happens when we notice it was already here, in What are you chasing? (And what if you already have it).
If this one turned something up and you feel like sharing it, I'd like to hear it. Private, under your name, or anonymous, whichever feels right to you.
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