Looks Like Home

I'm back at my parents place for awhile now, studying and generally remembering how to relax. I know that I have written a lot about home and what that means to me. There have been many places in my life that I have been able to call home for various reasons. Some part of me is always looking for a place to call home. I like being home and my current lifestyle means that I cannot always be in the same place to be home. I found an interesting quote that represents my life very well at this point.

"One never reaches home. But where paths that have an affinity for each other intersect, the whole world look like home, for a time." Herman Hesse

The book that quote comes from is a very interesting one. The plot is slightly less enjoyable than many of the books I read with slightly disturbing implications, but it has many really thought provoking concepts, this simply being one of many.

I have found that it is impossible to look for home. You cannot simply will a place to become home for you. When you try and do that, the feeling, the connection to the idea of home is lost. It is also true that you cannot will a place to remain home for you.

It is hard to realize that some places will not remain home for your whole life. For a long time, I thought that my camp would always be a home for me, but the past years of returning have taught me that is not true. There were paths that intersected there for me for a long time, but they have simply moved to another place.

There are many paths in my life, and many of them have reached points of intersection across a variety of locations. Some of them have lost their feeling of home, but many of them haven't. There are many places that look like home and many more that are going to look like home before my journey along my own paths end.

Finding a place that looks like home usually gives me a chance to stop moving for awhile. It's a place to rest and feel safe. What I love more than anything else is to find a place that feels like home. It is not the paths in my life make places feel like home, but the people. There have been many places that have become more like a home because of the people who inhabit them.

I have found a home at the L'arche communities in Richmondhill and London because of the people there who constantly welcome me with open arms, despite the fact that I disappear for long periods of time with little or no contact. I know that I have a home in London with my university friends, mostly because of my wise man who reminds me constantly that if I leave for a long period of time, there will be people who miss me. The home I spent much of my life in will always be a home, even though I really never live there.

Whether it is paths that intersect, or people who truly care for you, sometimes home will remain for a long time and other times it won't. But while it does, don't neglect it. There will never be another place like it.