"If Home Is Really Where the Heart Is...."

"Then home must be a place we all can share."  So begins a song  that helped celebrate the start of our home fourteen plus years ago.  I've had a week of being home - very little running, snuggling with a sick child, reading stories for long hours.  It has been delightful.  Perhaps it was this that prompted the question.  Perhaps it was looking at Old Faithful, curled up in the living room.  (For me, a collie embodies domesticity.) Or it could well be that we've borrowed DVDs of "The Waltons" from our library.  That family has certainly gripped our imaginations lately.

Whatever it was that prompted me, I posted a question on my Facebook page.  The essence of the question was, "What speaks domesticity/hominess to you?"  I received the most replies I've had on a Facebook update-ever!  Apparently, its a subject that is dear to everyone's heart. 

Their answers? Family.  It was the most frequently mentioned element of the world we call home.  Of course.  "Wherever theres is laughter ringing, someone smiling, someone singing...".  Children noises, quiet conversation.  Snuggles, tickles, debates, smiles.

Then there was the mention of bread baking, bowls of steaming soup, hot mugs of tea and coffee. Comfort. Communion.  Pets were highly esteemed as symbols of domesticity.  Community with a furry twist.

Others mentioned music, crackling fires, aprons, family feasts, mom's cooking.

It tooks several days for the comments to stop flowing in.  When they did, I noticed that there wasn't one mention of anything that didn't fit with a theme of nourishment, communion, a profound sense of peace and belonging. 

Funny how our culture is the antithesis of these.  And yet, we all know what we think it should look like.  Like Michael Oher in "The Blind Side",  insisting on sitting at the dinner table for Thanksgiving Dinner.  We long for it if we don't have it.  We treasure it if we do.  Perhaps that is why I got a record number of responses to the question.

"We will be together there.  Love will be our home." - Nanette