It's been four months now since we've called this place home. I remember saying over and over again to my family - "Is this the way it works? You move all your possessions into a different house and presto, it's supposed to become home?" Even though we have lived in nearly 20 different homes this time I had such a hard time settling into calling this place home, nevermind feeling like it truly was home. I often thought of when we moved from one province to another and our then three year old son would sit on the front step and cry and tell me it would just be okay if we could've brought our old house with us.
These thoughts are swirling in my mind as I think of all the people who lost their homes because of Hurricane Katrina. We talked here about where we would have gone in the event of an evacuation and it would have meant going 600 miles to my parent's place. The house I grew up in that my folks still live in. It made me think about what place means to a person and how it is not easy to just up and start over anywhere, under normal circumstances, let alone the horrific ones that the people in the Gulf States have experienced. And by place I mean not only our homes, but the geography, the nuances of a place. Those things that seep into our very bones about the bit of ground on which we live. You open the window or walk out the door in the morning and the rhythms of the place soothe....whether that be a busy street in a city or the quiet of a country setting. Place matters.
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