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FOR A WHILE
Sunday Dec. 28, 2014
Going home vis-à-vis being home?
Home – familiar surroundings, comfortable bed, everything handy – good to come home to. Yet it feels temporary, transitory.
I was away a few days.
A place I used to call home, where I used to be.
With people I used to see often.
For a while, visiting family and friends, driving familiar haunts.
I didn’t feel home.
What is this concept of home?
How is it we feel there?
Home, physical world place, or emotional space?
Where’s mine?
When and where does that exist?
Bucket list.
My list, such as it is, has nice-to-haves.
It would be nice to see this, nice to go there, nice to experience this.
Or that, but no destination truly conjures home feeling.
I’ve often spoken of Maui feeling that way, but Maui is a hope – perhaps a wishful dream, should I go live there, that it will feel that way.
This place, right now – as close to home as I have, but it doesn’t feel that way. Not yet.
Is that a desire to move, move on? Or to fix something about my situation?
Is there some need unfulfilled, some hole to plug, some missing ingredient to find?
Not tripping over Gusta is a strange feeling (I’ll pick her up this morning from the kennel).
Maybe that is part of the answer.
Being with people (and/or critters) who mean home to us, to be in their company.
For an hour, for lunch, for an evening.
For a few days.
For a visit, for a hug, for a plunge into discussion, for storytelling, for catching up ~ part time-travel, part going home …
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -9C/15F, decent breeze, light dusting of snow (Calgary’s white Christmas arrived a few days late), slippery and very quiet … methinks the snow blanket absorbs so much sound, or maybe everyone is having a sleepy Sunday
Reader feedback:
I am in Edmonton with family and thought if you were available I'd buy you a coffee. Another time, in another place, perhaps. Best of the New Year Mark. Keep up the muse, RT, Vancouver, BC
Mark, I read your columns as you documented the passing of your father. Alzheimer's, a dirty thief, took my father on December 19. He was 73. In a way that I cannot explain, your emails helped. Just wanted you to know. Thanks and Happy New Year, MM, Columbus, OH
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