Tag: home

Unique & Sacred Places

Let me just say this right off the bat. I love to travel and I have been to so many places already. Places like Australia, Hungary (Budapest), France, Italy, France, Turkey, etc. I am not here to boast about the places I have been to, but the one thing that I love about traveling is seeing all the unique places around the world. We can even see the uniqueness in our own back yard or hometown or a place we have come to call home. I have come to appreciate my hometown that much more because it is so unique. I feel like Wendell Berry says it the best. “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” There are times when you have to leave that unique place behind, but you learn so much from being in that place to begin with.

You begin to appreciate every place’s beauty and it is like discovering the world’s hidden gems. They are not always easy to find like what Kamaran Ihsan Salih says. “The precious gems are hidden, it is not easy to find them.” That is why I feel like they are called gems. They are precious and hidden very well from our view. Like I said before I have come to appreciate and love my hometown of Oakland, California that much more. I spent so much time there and have so many memories of such an incredible place. There are some lyrics from Adele’s song “Hometown” that speaks to this. “In my hometown memories are fresh.” And that lyric is so absolutely true because in everyone’s hometown there are memories that will be fresh in their minds no matter where they go.

Someday we may go back to our hometown and it could feel the same or different. I always think back to when I went to college and then came back afterwards. In some ways it changed and in some ways it stayed the same. I am going to throw one more quote into this post. Sam Ewing says “When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.” That quote is very powerful because it is not necessarily the place you miss, but it is the memories that you miss instead. I hope that my readers come to appreciate the beauty of their cities or place where they are right now. Enjoy my poem down below about my lovely “unique” place.

Image by Justinite from Pixabay.

Oakland, California

Twenty-seven years of my existence, scattered around and
Hidden within the precious gems of Oakland, where I grew
Up. It is like you keep rediscovering every forgotten nook.
An airport with tearful and heartfelt goodbyes with a hand
That is hard to let go of. With every minute passing through
It gets more difficult to part ways with a place that hooks
You with its charm and hometown feel. It is like luggage,
Lost but then found again among the panoramic views of
The city. The memories that are fresh yet years old, like
The boy I loved here with my heart among the wreckage
And the floorboards that creak beneath my feet. A love
That is lasting longer than the sky’s quick lightning strike.

The Feeling of Home

Home… we sometimes think of it as a physical place, like the place where we grew up or childhood home, but some of us are not as fortunate to have a place like that because they moved around a lot or never think of it as a physical place. In that case, it is like a feeling or emotion because it gives you safety and security. There is a quote by Cecelia Ahem who says “I’ve learned that home is not a place, it’s a feeling,” and as I have gotten older I have realized the same thing. There have been times where I have left home and have been homesick, but what makes a home is the people you surround yourself. Yes, I did miss my bed and childhood house, but I also missed the people that made it a home. I missed my parents, family and friends.

Everyone defines their home in a different way, whether it is a place like their hometown or city or state or country. Some people may define it as the people like their family, friends, significant other, etc. Whatever your definition of home it does not matter. My definition of home is a few things like my family and friends, but it is also what I have talked about before. It is every notebook and piece of paper where I have written my poetry. After all, it has made me safe and it helps me in ways I never thought was possible. I think I can go on and on about what home feels like, but I believe everyone gets my point about it so I am going to leave it here. Here are two poems about what home feels like. One being a person and one is a place. I hope that you end up enjoying them!! And happy (belated) Valentine’s Day!!

My poem titled “Home In Between Pages.”
My poem titled “Coming Home.”