House – home

Home – I read in a poem by Kamala Das the difference between house and home. She said house is made of brick and mortar, and home is where the hearts come together – a little distinction between two words which hitherto were one and the same to me. (will include the link to the poem once I find it).

Over the years ‘home’ has taken on varied shades of meanings. Never quite understood what Kamala Das meant but now I am thinking maybe I get an inkling of what she possibly could have meant.

People analogize life to a journey where you meet many kinds of people, and so have I on my journey.  A lot of them have left a mark in my memory in one way or another and have been recalled from time to time when vague glimpses of something similar to what the memory holds flashes across the mind’s eye, and quite vividly sometimes. Some people feel so familiar even if ‘strangers.’ It is not so much about mannerisms or speech but something feels ‘right’ about them, like you are not a stranger there..like ‘coming home.’ Home, then, I come to think, is perhaps not a place where people of same blood live together but where you feel accepted and not feel odd about your quirkiness and idiosyncracies and feel free to voice whatever and explore and just be. A place where it is ok to be you. It increasingly seems that home is not the place where one retires into but is where you feel to belong.