Home
The prompt for this week: Do you too find that your sensual memories of the place you grew up in, when sparked, arouse that kind of nostalgia, at once sharp and comforting? Or did you perhaps live somewhere you couldn’t wait to get away from, to find a more nurturing home elsewhere?
I took the prompt a different direction. I'd love to be nostalgic for my childhood home, where I lived from age 2 until 18, and was only sold after my mother died when I was over 50. However, the house was remodeled into non-recognition, the yard my father spend decades landscaping (growing much from seed in his lath house, using home made compost before everyone was making compost) bulldozed to flatness. I can be nostalgic for the old downtown of my youth, but we're talking San Francisco East Bay suburb and progress was inevitable to make it the up-scale community it is now, so all those stores are gone. I left in 2011 and have never gone back.
Conjuring up "Home" is what my home is to me now. Nothing nostalgic, just a large dose of comfort.
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| detail of painting in author's collection |
Home.
Where I don’t have to answer
the door if I don’t want to.
Home.
Where I can stay braless all
day if I choose.
Home.
Where my favorite person is my
dog.
Home.
Where I won't vacuum if I
don’t feel like it.
Home.
Where I hang the art I like no
matter how bad.
Home.
Where my front door can be
the only bright blue one around.
Home.
Where my bed doesn’t have to be
made.
Home.
Where I can eat cake for
breakfast and oatmeal for dinner.
Home
©2023 Lisa Smith Nelson. All Rights
Reserved
#poetsandstorytellersunited #fridaywritings #poetryprompt #poetryabouthome #freeverse #homepoem #whatishome #whatdoeshomemeantoyou
I love the paintings (blue door included), and every on of your quirky snapshots which illustrate 'Home' to perfection, as far as I can see. LOL. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you agree those are what make a home comfortable!
DeleteLovely Your poem connects home with a sense of freedom and that is right. A place where you can be yourself and make your own decisions. Love the painting
ReplyDeleteYes, I have no one to answer to, and while I do enjoy that, I do miss my late husband. I still did pretty much what I wanted, since I never wanted to do anything too out there!
DeleteHome is freedom and comfort expressed so well in your poem..........Rall
ReplyDeleteYes, freedom is most important. Otherwise I don't think you could be comfortable, you'd be on edge.
DeleteI love the painting too.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I substitute cat for dog and swap the blue door for a sign in the front window telling the world, 'Fairies live here', then your present home is just like mine!
I have two cats too. I love them to pieces and they are spoiled rotten. They showed up and moved in. So, I have cats, but consider myself a dog person. I thought the one before this would be my last, but I only stood it for six weeks before getting Mickey! Most of my artwork is thrifted (and some is really nice and known artists), but that one I bought as a present to myself with tax refund money, back when I worked. Plein Air early California.
DeletePerfect home! I especially like number 2. As a matter of fact......ha
ReplyDeleteYep! I understand it's now okay to never wear one, but at my age, I don't go out in public, even to the mailbox, unless it's dark!
DeleteI'm thinking you are living alone and don't have to please anyone else besides your self. I too left home, at age 17 and never came back to live. We too sold it when my widower dad died. The new owners bulldozed it down and burned the pile.
ReplyDelete..
Not quite alone, my youngest, a son, lives with me. Still, I do what I want! No one to answer to is freeing!
DeleteHome is freedom, isn't it? Home is still the best.
ReplyDeleteLike the painting you did. I used to dabble in oils but have switched to pencil sketching. :)
Oh, I didn't paint that. I don't paint. My father did and I have some of his. I work in pastels. Or, used to, it's been a while.
DeleteThe comfort and ease of our own little sanctuary.... and I love your painting.
ReplyDeleteYour home sounds so much like mine (without the dog).
ReplyDelete