Homecomings

"There's no place like home"

"Home is where you make it"

"Mama, I'm coming home"

These are some great quotes. Everyone should know the first one. It's from a pretty well known movie: The Wizard of Oz. Sound familiar? The second one is also from a movie, but maybe not as mainstream as the Wizard of Oz. That quote is actually one of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies, Joe Dirt. (Pronounced Joe Deertay, I believe) Finally, the last quote is from an Ozzy Osbourne song. It really has nothing to do with what I'm going to talk about except it says the word home in it. I only put it because it came into my head when I started writing.

These famous sayings are used a lot, but I am curious as to how much any of us actually think about these. I have to admit, I never really think about these, but recently I have been. (Wow, tonight's just a song fest! "Recently I've been" is the start of the DMB song Recently) Firstly, I'm never at my official home anymore, for I'm always either at school or working. This leads me to my second point: I have developed other homes. At times, it feels like school is my home, and often, I do think of it as my second home. Also, we are trying to sell our house and move to a better house. I wonder if the new house will feel like home? I've lived here for nine years, so the short year and a half might not be enough to transition into the new house.

In this year, 2009, people are really busy! Many years ago, a home was where a family lived, worked, and played. The kids might have gone to school somewhere else, but a lot of time was spent at home. In current times, though, "home" has become a more ambiguous term. Does it mean a house? Just a place to sleep at night? Every person's definition of what home is may be different. Does "home" constitute a building? A town? I guess that's where the crazy guy from Joe Dirt comes in. In the movie, he tells Joe, "Home is where you make it," when Joe is trying to find his parents' old house. Joe had lived in many different places, but he still felt like he didn't have a home because he didn't know his parents. So maybe one's true home is where their parents are, their origins.

For me, even though I may be at school and work for a huge part of the day, I still consider my home to be my house. School is a home in the fact that I am there a lot, and it is a community that I am a part of. However, at home, my house, I am able to relax and simply be. At school and work, I am always busy, with no time to sit and not do anything. The more I am working, (at a job or at school) the more I am starting to value that fact that I have a place to just be to myself and ignore the craziness of the world, even if just for a few minutes. I also value sleep more and more, for it is the true relaxation time. It is my meditation time where I get to clear myself of the day's troubles.

If we do move to a new house, will it feel like home? I remember when my grandparents moved about five years ago. Every time we visited them for about a year, I was surprised to go to the new house. I was expecting to go to their old house. Even now, after visiting many times, it still feels different there, like it's not really their house. When we move, will it feel like ours? I will only be there for less than two years, so it might not for me. It will help that we will move while I am still living with my parents. My brother, on the other hand, has been gone for a few years, and the new house will probably be really, really different for him.

As Dorothy put it, there's no place like home, so I guess we'll just have to adapt and figure out a way to make the new house our home. After all, home is where you make it. So mama, I'm coming home.

Favoritism

As I sit here trying to finish my homework late at night due to a night at work, I listen to some music on Pandora, I have come up with a good question that baffles me every time someone asks it. The common query: What is your favorite kind of music? Also very related: Who's your favorite singer, or what's your favorite book, favorite movie, etc. My reply to all of these is, why do I have to have a favorite? The one inquiry into my interests that bothers me, and is impossible to answer, is: what kind of music is on your iPod?

For me, what is on my iPod is, first of all, whatever I like. I try not to simply buy the music that is popular at the time (although that does happen), rather than buy a song that I enjoy. Being a musical person, I always listen to the music behind the lyrics. Lackluster beats just don't get me as excited as an intricate bass line does. People who look at my iPod might think I am strange due to my wide variety of music genres. When I say I have everything, I do not lie. My in-pocket musical library contains anything from "gangsta" rap to Sibelius violin concertos. This is why these questions about favorites are so difficult for me to understand, and to answer. How am I supposed to tell you my favorite genre when I like them all, when I listen to them all. Maybe next time I should just fool them and say Irish polka rap...or maybe not. I think my best answer to the question is music with depth.

Why do we ask others what their favorites are, though? As children we are asked what our favorite color is, or our favorite animal. The obvious answer to me is that we are simply very interested in other people. We want to know about them, and these questions are conduits for us to access their personality. I spoke earlier of my seemingly wide variety of music genres, which now, when thinking of our favorites as aspects of personality, has a much different meaning. While some people have a definite favorite conventional genre (rap, country, classical), others might not have a single favorite in these everyday genres. Instead, these individuals look for qualities in the music other than the label given to it. A good example that comes to mind is Hope by Twista and Faith Evans. Some people enjoy the lyrics and rhymes that Twista delivers much like a rap song. Other people might listen to the song from another viewpoint, focusing on the strings in the background (Yes, rap musicians do use strings sometimes) as well as the light percussion. The common "genre" on the iPods of these people would be musical music.

Questions about favorites are so difficult to answer, as well. Haven't you been asked by someone what your favorite movie is and simply been unable to answer? The category of Movie contains an extreme number of films that to pick one that is my favorite, at least for me, is a daunting challenge. Plus, it is so hard to decide what is better between a fingernail-biting action/suspense movie and a tear jerking Nicholas Sparks type movie. The way they cause emotions is so different and so profound in their respective ways, that to decide which one is "better" is nearly impossible. One solution could be to ask, what's your favorite action movie, or your favorite sad movie. Asking these, however, would be odd as well, because you still don't know which one they like more! Therefore, my friends, the question of favorites will always be asked, and you will always be expected to have an answer ready. You could do like me and say Irish polka rap, or you could just pick one of your top 5 and say that's your favorite. If you feel bad about placing that one above the others, take your top 7 (I know, it's hard to pick that, too) and pick one as your favorite for each day of the week.