Home Is Where the Heart Is a metaphorical statement encompasses within itself a deeper and profound explanation for all that we feel for walls and empty spaces. No matter where you go, which place you visit, what comfort you are currently in, nothing matches the authenticity and warmth of the place which has your heart.
The place is not merely a concrete structure for you, but a living and breathing entity of its own. The rooms and spaces, the essence of it all take up a significant place in your heart which is unparalleled to any other comfort. Sometimes, “home” might not just be a four-walled space where you come back to, sometimes, a human being, a country, a footpath, a journal, or some special place also connote to the meaning of “home”. Our idea of home can be different yet correct in its place. Anything which makes you feel safe yet vulnerable, comfortable, and free at once, is your home.
When a baby grows up within the periphery of his mother’s lap, he has no ideation for a “home”, for him, the warmth of his mother is his home. He cannot decipher that a home is ideally a concrete space which shelters you and keeps you safe from all probable danger. The mother here plays the role of his home; keeling him safe from all calamities. Similarly, when a soldier is miles away from his country, fighting enemies on foreign soil, his picture of a home will be a vision of his country. His home will be his people, his culture, his identification with his soil and the smell of the country’s breeze. When he says he longs to return home, he means he wants to return to his feeling, revisit his truth, his ultimate identity. Home can also be your dog wagging his tail around you, encouraging you to play with him/her for a while. Their unfiltered and unconditional love might be your idea of security. You invest your all into that furry ball of happiness in return of security and loyalty. The feeling of fulfillment when you spend time with your pet can be your understanding of home. The ineffable bond you share with him might be the summation of an ideal home in your eyes. To some, their lover’s arms is where their home resides.
Why Home Is Where the Heart Is?
After a tiring day at work, when you return to your house hungry and exhausted, you see your partner greet you with a warm affectionate smile and half of your exhaustion dies there itself. The company of that persons tends to erase the creases of stress from your body. You slowly start to let go and get comfortable and relaxed in this atmosphere. You are no longer in an alien place. You are accepted and owned by someone you love. You are at home now. You let loose your emotions and gently embrace your personified home. Another fine example of home would be a rag picker’s resting place. He or she is not blessed with the comfort of AC or heater, has no soft quilts to rest his exhausted body upon. He takes refuge is cracks and creeks. His solace might be a place under a bridge or on a footpath or maybe inside an abandoned bus, who knows. That is his/her home. That is what brings to them a certain degree of safety from the cruelty of the weather and people. He creates his comfort in those abandoned spaces by adopting them as his own. He is at home now.
To substantiate the validity of this statement above, there are a million novels, poems, films and songs written to artistically define the weightage of the statement. In their way trying to propagate the fluid-like meaning of the word “home”. Time and again, the definition has only given more meaning and integrity to the word, deciphering what it means for each unique mind out there living in their own home. The iconic song, sung by John Denver, which is remembered like a hymn by most, “Country roads take me home”, very poetically and innocently tells us what makes up the singers home. He remembers his country as he left it years back and is now requesting the roads to guide him home. As if he has forgotten how to return to his native place, but remembers what it looked like when he left. He recollects the name of his city, his mother, his lover and the kind of emotion he had for her, all of this little details adds up to his picture of the home. The radio reminds him of his home. The news about his place probably gets him thinking what it must be like back at home.
These little recurring flashbacks happens to the singer and to people far from home because the heart has stayed behind while the body moved away. There is a metaphorical separation of the heart and body. While the body roams about from place to place like a vagabond on a quest, the heart is faithfully anchored to the place which first taught it how to beat, which blessed it with emotions. That entity is your home. No matter where you shift or run away, your heart is always attached to where it first started to feel. Its initial and final idea of comfort and safety is its home which can’t erased or replaced with the rapidity of time or change of place.
There is a reason why “home” and “house” are two wayward definitions. While one stands for emotions, another stands for a mere concrete structure. However, what turns a house into a home is the invasion of emotions. Home is where the heart is quote has a lot of emotion attached to it.
Also read “Let That Sink In” – Meaning, Usage and Examples
