We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes…
–Madeleine L’Engle, from The Rock That Is Higher

I came across this quote online today.  I find I appreciate Madeleine L'Engle's books more now than I did as a child--there is a depth to them I failed to understand when I was younger.  I may make it a goal to read more of her books this summer.

Thoughts on Home...

I came across an Emily Dickinson quote today (quote is pulled from www.goodreads.com):

They say that "home is where the heart is."  I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.

And a friend once said:

Home is where the majority of your possessions are.

(An apt description for those of us whose lives are a bit more mobile...)

And others say things like:

Home is where you lay your head.

Or home can be people:

Wherever you are is home to me.

Or sometimes a place:

Oh, give me a home, where the buffalo roam...

Or an occupation or way of life.

Is it singing like Chris LeDoux:

I'll make my home beneath these western skies...

With certainty:

When I die, you can bury me beneath these western skies...

Is home a definition, a resting, a peace?

Or is home an action, a constant moving forward?

You know, a dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows,
And a dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes... (of Garth Brooks fame...)

A journey? 

And I'll sail my vessel 'til the river runs dry... (Garth Brooks again...)

Or as the Sons of the Pioneers sang it:  (from www.cowboylyrics.com)

I know when night has gone
That a new world is born at dawn.

I'll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds...