home

home is where the heart is...
home is where you hang your hat...
home is where your dog's bowl is...
home is where the cat lives...
home is where you lay your head...

home... is a very strange thing. some people see land as home, others, family... i'm not really sure what home is. i think it's probably some sort of emotional thing. some people find home in a pack of cowboy killers... drinks with friends... some people see some sort of club, bar, whatever as home... it's portrayed in movies as that place where you ran away from and are returning to on some epic adventure... but, what IS home? i have no clue, so lets think about this together...

for me, home is in people. but that explanation falls short. when i'm around my family, i often get stir-crazy and want to leave and get 'out there'... when i'm out on some adventure, i often miss the warmth of my own bed... what is with this? the whole world is shit. it seems like i want to enjoy time in a place with the people i love and no issues... maybe, as many Christians talk about it, home is with God... maybe i am just anxious for a new place, a place where hurts don't happen... i love being home for break, but i'm tired of my mom being sick from the chemo... i'm tired of my brother having no common sense and just seeming retarded half the time... i'm tired of my dad being stressed out because the woman he loves is ill... this world sucks... and you know what, there's very little we can actually do about it.

i used to tell people all the time that "we all die alone". it's true. we do. there's nothing you nor i can do about it. death is a purely individual experience... even if someone is there, holding your hand, wiping the sweat from your brow, telling you how much they love you, you'll die alone. even groups of jews, packed into a bunker and gassed, they died alone. i don't mean to offend, i don't mean to be lewd or vulgar, but it's true, it's hard fact. the hard fact of this life is it's fleeting, and before it can get away it's going to suck a lot of the time... and then, then one dies. this existence is fucked up, but it's better to make the best of it before you go.

before i go, i want to return to the topic of home. home, for me, are hill in kathmandu that i have never walked on, with my superman bhai on one side and my pyaro bhai on the other. it's in trees in the jungles of peru with jon... it's in tiny towns in Tennessee with Tanner... sometimes... it's in quiet dorm rooms while friends are letting you play Fallout 3 while they study and sleep before finals... somtimes, it's snow angels in the middle of the road. for me, home is about those times where you could weep for joy, but don't. you could stay, but it's time to leave. you could keep walking, but the daylight is coming. we've all lost a lot, innocence mostly, but we've all lost a lot. somewhere out there, there's a child coming to the realization that this life is hard. there's an old man, forgotten by the family he forgot, dying. alone. and sometimes, sometimes i wonder, is there anything really in this life that has meaning?

if i have never told you, there's a vivid image that comes to mind when i hear a certian louis armstrong song... he was old when it was recorded, but, it's so wonderful, so beautiful. every time it starts to play i can see a hospital bed near a window that overlooks an oak with squirrels in it. it's springtime and people are walking by on the cement side-walk... and you know... that old man never noticed these things, he never thought about them until it was time to die... what a wonderful world, oh yeah...