Home is Where...

“This is home,” my friend says to me. “This is home.” 

Struck by the feeling in her words, I look out at the sunset that we’re watching together on the roof patio above her house which serves as the porch to my little separate apartment and temporary residence for the next three months. Orange rays beam up from below the mountainous horizon to complement the blue of the darkening Mexican sky. A fan of light. Below that, the mountains slip into a deeper shade of dress. A dog barks. A vehicle, its PA system announcing the selling of something, Churros? Paletas? Jugo? begins its street by street roaming. “That’ll go on for the next twenty minutes,” my friend says. We’re sharing a bottle of wine which she’s said she’s saved for a special occasion. Sunset is a special occasion. Cheers, salud, prost, I’ll go for that.  

I take a sip. It’s a good wine. Something red. Something dry.

Leaned up against the roof wall, I gaze down at the brick and tin of the homes crammed in next to each other behind the wall of her property, at the green, white, and red flag that flies from the top of a house just beyond those, at the lights that bespeak of the residences built along the foothills and up the incline of the not-so-far-off mountains, at the trees that fill in the empty spaces, at the telephone lines that crisscross my view. It’s been a long time since I’ve called a place home. Flitting about the world, barely letting my feet touch ground as I go, I haven’t wanted to.

Every now and again, there have been places that felt homelike or homey. There have been places that I loved. There have been places to which I would return. There’s even the place where I grew up and where a good portion of my family still lives that is easily called home; a place to go back to and then take leave of again.

But home, Home, that place I wouldn’t want to ever leave for long, that place that would draw me back to it when I had the temerity to venture off, that place where I would stick my feet down like roots into rich dirt to stay in forever? That place I haven’t had for a long time.

And when my friend says, “This is home,” I realize I don’t want that for a long long time either. Not yet. If ever.

What is this spirit of non-attachment?

Is it just the feeling that wherever I am is home?

That the world is waiting and there’s so much to see?

That belonging is more than a sense of place?

For now, it doesn’t really matter if I can’t answer all my own questions.

The wind blows my hair across my face. The stars begin to blink into view. My friend adds some wine to my glass and to hers. We sit with our words on the tips of our tongues and let them out as we see fit. Drinking our wine, spilling out our conversation.

When they’ve played all they can on their own, my friend’s children venture up to where we are and fill the patio with their chatter, presence, and questions. We look upwards and piece together the constellations and planets, spinning on our toes from compass point to compass point. “That’s Jupiter. That’s Antares. That’s Scorpio. That’s Cassiopeia. That’s the Big Dipper.”

It’s a school night and soon enough, before they want to, they go downstairs to get their lunches packed and to get ready for bed.

Left alone, with the stars to still keep me company, I look around again. Home? A pack of dogs sound out in their first howling of the night. The roosters are quiet; long ago tucked in to roost. No, not a home with a capital H. But, nevertheless, it’s a place where I can practice spontaneity, be open to fresh ideas, meet new people, participate in the strangeness of human community, and stretch myself beyond my own hermetic habits. Not home for me, and yet, for my friend, this place is both her home and Home and for a short time I can share it with her.

That’s enough. That’s enough for now.