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This is a pretty substance-free diary. I was just looking at some pictures (Hubie’s, I think) being posted in another thread, and noticed that some of you seemed to be reminiscing or missing places you’ve left. They say, cliché as it is, that home is where the heart is.

If that’s true, then here is my home, my heart:

St. Simons Island, Georgia. Steeped in wondrous memories for me, and at times… unspeakably beautiful.

So tell me, moose.

Where is your home?


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/ 21 Comments

21 comments

  1. John Allen

    I guess home is wherever I lay my head. I could be happy in a shack in the woods and happy in a penthouse overlooking Central Park. I’ve been to a few places in my life and loved many of them. But there isn’t one that says, “This is home.”

  3. Shaun Appleby

    In the late 50s, my family rented a little cottage out in the woods but not too far from the New York Central commuter stop for Grand Central. My dad worked in advertising. I had to walk about a mile through the woods and across a sports field to get the school-bus. It was pretty tough going sometimes in winter, very cold, and I can remember pretending to be trekking to the South Pole. Sometimes I got a lift with Mom if our driveway was ploughed.

  5. jsfox

    I have lived in Orlando, FL. (ugh) NY (Long Island until 10 and then NYC when I first started working), MA, CA and NH. My memories of Long Island are wonderful, but living in Marblehead, MA are some of my fondest memories. However I agree with Chris these three make the home.

    PICT0050

  6. spacemanspiff

    As a kind of modern day nomad I’ve had this song on my playlist forever.

    Still pulls at my heartstrings.

    It’s funny because now it makes me think of the places I’ve left where this song was a constant in my earphones.

  8. Kysen

    so much of ‘home’ is the smells.

    Salt marsh.

    Paper mill.

    Gardenias and Magnolias.

    The sweet decay of the South.

    I grew up on an one of the sea islands near Charleston, SC. It is home. Will always be home. My folks still live there, but, even after they are gone…it will be home. It is part of me. In my blood. Somehow woven into my very being. I have traveled the world, and while there are other places that ‘speak’ to me…no other ‘feels’ like home.

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  9. Peter Jukes

    …and many profound, vivid and inspiring answers.

    I should follow in Chris and JSFox’s path and declare that these two are my home.

    They certainly have been, for the last twenty and eighteen years respectively. But now they’re beginning to leave home (son at Oxford, daughter about to study in Spain) and before long they will be setting up homes of their own.

    I could say this is my spiritual home, the British countryside, here in an old photo of my grandfather’s Suffolk backgarden, sometime during the war. This is what we we were fighting for, and my mum was always a fantastic gardener in the English tradition (despite her non English roots).

    I was brought up in this countryside in my teens, and spent hours walking through it. It’s deep in my heart.

    In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls

    Across the open field, leaving the deep lane

    Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,

    Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,

    And the deep lane insists on the direction

    Into the village, in the electric heat

    Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light

    Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.

    The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.

    Wait for the early owl.

    T.S. Eliot: Four Quartets: East Coker

    But physically, I’m really at home here, in the centre of London, the messy, chaotic busyness of the inner city – a world away from rural quiet Round one corner is a great view of St Paul’s. Too lazy to go out and snap it now, but here’s the city view from my window.

    Maybe not that beautiful or inspiring, but I can walk to the West End in ten minutes. Dickens’ house is around one corner. Sam Johnson’s around the other. Smithfield market – where they burnt heretics and conducted Bartholomeus Fair – just across the road, over the now buried Fleet River.

    But if there is one place I really feel at home – something which has travelled with me for most of these last fifty years, it is my library. I have over 4,000 books, not all of them read, but nearly all sampled, turned ears, underlines, notes and poems in the margins or backpages. No kindle or online library will every replace this too me, where at a glance I can rove from Neuroscience to Python, Thomas Aquinas to Primo Levi. Each marks some point in my personal history. Some are gifts. Some are borrow, many battered from travel or decaying with age.  Her are about two thirds of them

    During my turbulent deracinated adolescence (we were constantly moving) I had a dream my bedroom was on an oil platform that was falling into the sea. I tried to hold onto everything, especially my books. But it all tumbled into the turbid ocean, and I was afraid.

    But the water was warm. I was rolled in the waves and fell asleep. And when I woke up (still in my dream) the ocean had receded, leaving me on the sand of the sea bed, with my books still around me.

    So maybe it’s here that this restless roving pilgrim spirit really feels at home.  

  10. Jjc2008

    BTW, love your pics….

    When it comes to home for me, these days, I feel in a bit of a conundrum.  Since my parents are gone from this earth, my only sibling is gone, and I have no children, I am not quite sure where that is.  I am fortunate to have three wonderful children (adults now) from my sister who are now mine.  I am particularly close to two of them and could live the rest of my life near them and their babies.

    I have many cousins with whom I shared a childhood, playing, schooling, being together (think MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING).  That’s sort of how my family was.  We did everything together.  

    So now, as I am retired, and ready to move on through this phase of my life, I have options.  

    *I love the beauty of Colorado, and despite it’s conservative bent, Colorado Springs has been a wonderful city in which to live.  I have many close friends here.

    *My oldest nephew is in a small town in FL and he has two baby girls with whom I would love to spend more time. His area is also conservative, but I could deal.  And I am not enjoying winters nearly so much any more.

    *In the burbs of Philly, near Valley Forge, where I grew up, are many cousins. Few of my friends are left there but there are one or two. It is a wonderful area, albeit crowded, with rolling hills and heavily wooded areas.

    I still struggle with where I will head.  I am leaning more toward PA, at least for a while.  It’s an easy flight between Philly and Tampa so I can visit often.

    Home for me was with my folks. I was one of those fortunate people who hit the lottery with parents.  We were poor but happy, and family and relationships were valued over material goods and wealth.

    When I am there, I often visit the cemetery.  While I am not a religious person, I still find comfort walking there and relaxing with memories of loved ones.

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