"Home" is a Word

There's been a number of songs bouncing around my head lately. Some are those that make my heart grow three sizes. Some are those that make my anger feel, on balance, more righteous than petty. Some are those that furrow my brow and make the tiniest leaf scuttling along the ground seem indescribably precious. There's a mix CD in the works, clearly, but I thought I'd share one that is particularly relevant: Home from The Wiz.

Try not to get too distracted by the awesome shiny shirt. Just listen to the words.

I am the first to admit that I am an idealist, but this song backs off the schmaltz factor just a tiny little bit when it's put into the context of the story: a girl stalled in her life gets swept away to an alien place and goes through a harrowing fantastical adventure, but one with real emotion and depth that her workaday life had been lacking.

When she's away and missing it, of course Home is rosy and perfect and sweet-smelling. Real homes are this, but also laced with the bittersweetness of being out-of-sync after a long time away-- out of step with the rhythm of the place, even the landscape.

It's a strange realization returning to a place that was so formative in your life and realizing that you've continued forming, long after you left. Truthfully, we wouldn't want it any different: no one wants a mouthful of corn syrup when they could have some semisweet chocolate. (And let's be honest, there are certainly some nuts around here. Ha!) And who would want to revisit their lives of seven years ago only to realize that everything, including themselves, was exactly the same? *Shudder* They say that 'most of the cells in your body are replaced every seven years,' which makes for a vastly inaccurate statement as far as science goes, but a reassuring biological analogue for this feeling. "Huh. Figures. If I'm physically a different person, it stands to reason that I would relate to this place in a different way." The scientist in me again strains against the oversimplification there, but the poet in me isn't bothered about it.

And speaking of poets: "Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration." ~Charles Dickens

And speaking of poets: it's raining again on the roof of the house where I lived. I prayed to this yellow-painted ceiling as I drifted into sleep, I sprawled on this sandy carpet rather than do my homework, I slipped and shivered on this or that linoleum. There are parts of this place that are new, too, in the past seven years - windows and couches replaced, bushes torn out - it's different, but still familiar in its way. As are we both.

Hello, Home. Hello, old friend. It's nice to meet you.