Home

What is "HOME?"

The realtors tell us, "Location, location, location."

We all know, though, that the most expensive house in the most wonderful location may not be a home.

A better phrase might be, "Connection, connection, connection."

The people: family, close friends, the ones who come through our doors and make us laugh and learn and love, all contribute to the connections that make the four walls of a house our home. (I would add pets to that list, too. The funny antics and even the annoying behaviors of our pets help fill our home with vital, living connections.)

Home is an intangible. A feeling. An atmosphere. Home is something we take with us, we do not leave it behind when we move to a new house.

Realtors, of course, are not going to be out there selling, "Connection, connection, connection." It is not a marketable asset. It is, though, makeable. Is that a word? Something we are able to make.

We make a home through our connections with others. Through our day in, day out efforts to connect. To provide. To shelter. To teach and learn. To share ourselves and our stuff.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, as it looks like we are packing to move. Not absolutely for certain, yet, but soon. What I leave behind, or get rid of in the process of packing, will not be the intangible reality of our home. What goes with us will be our home, what is "us."

How would you define a home? What words come to mind when you think of home? I know there is still more to learn, more to think about on this. More to understand about this business of making a home, being a homemaker.