HOUSE CHARM

But I like to believe that it’s not just like that.

That in the end, a sweater, a toothbrush, and a t-shirt in a duffel bag might be enough, because home is that place that transcends all places, all of them.
A portion of space and time where you can and must return, despite everything and despite everyone.
Despite every night spent in sheets you didn’t choose.

A couch on a Sunday afternoon, a restaurant table, a hotel bed.
The simple ring of the phone – even if you're on the other side of the world – and a parent calling to check if you’re okay.
I like to think that fate reserves many homes for each of us, as long as we have time and heart to seek them, to discover them.

Some close by and others far away. Empty, lacking cups and sugar jars. Empty of everything, but not empty of you.
Furnished to the point where you can smell the linens in the drawers. Those welcoming homes where you step in and immediately want to take off your shoes.

Crowded with people and music. Messy, with dirty plates and glasses from the night before on the table, next to the coffee cup from the morning after.
Silent, to hear the wind through the leaves, with windows wide open.
Homes by the sea, filled with salt and, watch out, the railing’s a bit rusty.
A home with a view of traffic, with ambulances and cars rushing by at all hours. With the sheets undone and someone still sleeping.

I like to think that, with a home in your heart, you can go anywhere, never really getting lost.
Every tear without shame and every book started on the nightstand is, in the end, home.
Every time you don’t feel alone, surrounded by people, is home.

I like to think that home is the place of loves: those that have passed, those present, and those to come, with whom we share, have shared, or will share the understanding that intimacy is made of small gestures, the ability to first share the emptiness, and then everything that follows.
And it doesn’t matter that we’re neither thieves nor kings. I like to think that any place where we can make love is Home.