You may have noticed I’ve been missing home this winter. The weather, the distance, the long months of unemployment followed by the transition to a new job – all have had me missing the familiarity of Abilene. Which is perhaps why two songs on the subject have lodged in my heart and stayed there.
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes have been everywhere recently with their folk hit, “Home.” Just watch this beautiful video of a dad and his little daughter singing it and tell me you aren’t sold:
Closer to (my) home, a college acquaintance of mine (Brandon Kinder, who also sings lead for the Rocketboys) recently released an EP, and as a sneak peek, released the music video for a song also called “Home”:
Two lines in these songs, one from each, get me every time. The first, sung repeatedly among all that whistling, is “Home is wherever I’m with you.” I am lucky, I know, to have people in Boston with whom I feel at home – most notably my sweet husband, and our fellow Abilene transplants. (I’ve talked so much about them because I have, literally, clung to them – they are not only kind and funny and wise, but they represent that familiarity I miss.) And I/we have made new friends with whom we also feel at home, and in whose presence we can relax, open up, laugh, cry, be known.
The other line, from Brandon’s song, hits me with more poignancy: “You’re never gonna be that far away from home.” I know in my bones it’s true, in important ways – home is something you carry with you; home is people, not always a place (see above); those people I love in Texas/Nashville/Oxford/all over the place are still home to me, and we’re not that far away, in the grand scheme of things.
But there have been so many times this winter when it hasn’t felt true. When it has felt like we’re a million miles from Abilene and our families and the life we used to have. When I have wondered if Boston will ever feel like home, and if we’ll ever get back home, to wide sunset skies and Tex-Mex food and Friday nights filled with high school football.
I still don’t know the answers to those questions – though I have a suspicion Boston will eventually begin to feel like home. Until then, I’ll be holding both these songs close, thankful for the people who make that Edward Sharpe lyric true for me. And trying with all my heart to believe Brandon’s words…to trust that home is often so much closer than I think it is.
cakes, tea and dreams 