Questions:
Did you know that there is a branch of behavioral psychology, of philosophy, and of sociology, devoted to the study of “Being in Place”?
They ask questions about community, about landscape and belonging. What is it about a physical location that makes us say, “home”? That makes us feel, “here”?
These are the questions I’m asking these days. I don’t have the words to answer them yet. For now I have a handful of images, which make me feel something close to what it is I eventually want to say.
An Excerpt:
Dear M,
I woke up thinking about you this morning. Missing you in a very real way, like there was a space in my kitchen while I was boiling water for maté and unwrapping a thick piece of bread from its tinfoil, where it seemed you should be.
What is it about certain places that make us say ‘home’? Do you know? Do you think the places feel the same way about us when we arrive?
Love,
me
~
Re: here
I like to live as if they do. As if those places that I sink into like home also come a little bit more alive with my exhale. Like every time we somehow shape around each other a little more like rivers and rocks and wind.
See you soon.
Question: How do you know when you are home?
To The Bones 
“Home is wherever I’m with you.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I find like this morning, while in conversation, I was drawing a seaweed form on my tea cup with my thumb ( other fingers on the handle). The cup felt smooth and cool to the touch. The fact that I noticed it made me realize how present I was. Relaxed.
From the critical intro to Samuel Beckett’s ‘End Game’ I have retrieved these words: “Born into a world without reason, they wait out their lives for an explanation that never comes and whose existance may be only a figment of their imagination.” A Hindu saint believes that we were never born into this world and that this entire world is an illusion. I was born without a religion and so had no rulebook. Home is where the people who speak to me are at. (Aesthetic flatiron surroundings certainly help, illusory or not.)
I admire the introspective way you look at things. Me? I’m thinking of trying relocation astrology…someone just give me an answer! Great post, as always.
oh these images scream home to me too. Longing. The kind that packs bags and fills gas tanks for a long trip.
My favorite topic! The pictures say a million words, and I love the idea of “Home” being more than one place…
home. here. now. home.