I just went to a movie the other night with my husband, Jack. The tale of Honeyland is not just sweet; it’s touching and remarkably real. We all know someone in this movie. Maybe not the “exact” character, as they’re all very raw; these "real life” characters are strikingly uneasy to watch, keeping us off-balance while we judge them, and feel prejudice towards them, but end up feeling sheer compassion for them. The premise of this movie is so multifaceted I cannot begin to give it justice...so, go see it.
What this movie did for me was bring back a very real sense of home. A home is not a structure, it’s a place, it’s in our heart, our mind, a smell we remember, a sound, a secret which lives in our past or our future as we try to hunt it down again and recreate something which makes us feel safe, protected, sad, hungry, happy or at times indifferent.
Why do we seek a home? We see ourselves celebrating our lives there and for most of us we draw from past memories which hold a key to our inner heart, a home savors the longing to recreate that special feeling, the real key to the door we open when we feel that sense of home is profound. Those realizations are not always perfect and sometimes it scares us while at the same time awaking us from our day-to-day tasks in this increasingly complex world.
When we search for something, we imagine and try to recreate from memory what we want going forward: This may change the way we search for our next home. If you are looking for a home, ask yourself what that really means to you. It may be the people you choose to share it with, the familiar bark of a dog next door, the way the rain hits the roof. You’ll know when you find it, if you search in the right place and allow the sense of home to move you to the forefront of what’s important to you.
A home doesn’t need to be new or shiny, larger than we’ll make use of, too private, filled with unused rooms, have too many bedrooms or baths. It needs to fill our heart and wrap its arms around us when we’ve had a long day. It’ll greet us like an old friend and have our back when we need a place to rest.
Talk to you again soon,
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