Home again
Comfort, familiarity, family, peace.
These are shared threads of thought on the subject of home. What I found interesting is that a lot of you thought home was not a fixed structure. How ironic that I should write my earlier post about the connection of a fixed structure (house) and feelings (home). Guess I’m the odd one out! Upon rereading my previous post I suppose I could have emphasized more of the feelings associated with the structures that I focused my attention on.
I also noticed an absence of pets, though this is something I left out as well and am considering now because my cat is nearly obscuring my keyboard here with me making lots of cat noises. If I were to append anything to my story, I would add the presence of my cat! After all, she’s been here next to me while I write every single post. I’m considering the amount of effort it requires to move with a pet, or ensure the pet is cared for when I move (or go away from our home). Does anyone else have a pet who becomes stressed when forced to leave home? It’s interesting that pets also carry notions of home.
My cat, Whiskers! (Shh I named her when I was 8.)
Hi Jessica,
I do not believe home is a fixed structure, but it is often strongly linked to one. If one thinks of home as being a feeling of warmth, acceptance, and love, it is easy to see how they could associate it with seemingly fixed entities, such as the house they grew up in and first built intimate connections with their family members. I also feel like there is a certain geography to most people’s sense of home, which means associating home with a broad and stable area, such as the area composing a country; this may be reflected when people return from an overseas trip and make a comment like ‘we are finally home’ upon re-entering their country.
As for cats, I have two of them! They bring me the sense of warmth and comfort that I associate with home and I hope I do the same for them if they are capable of having such feelings.
-Spencer
ps: Whiskers is very pretty!