Homing

I just started reading Staying Put: Making a home in a restless world by Scott Russell Sanders this morning and I've already marked a bunch of passages and wept once. The following are brief excerpts from chapter 2, "House and Home," a beautiful contemplation of our ties to the places we live in.

"The homing pigeon is not merely able to find the roost from astounding distances; the pigeon seeks its home. I am a homing man. Away on solo trips, I am never quite whole. I miss family, of course, and neighbors and friends; but I also miss the house, which is planted in the yard, which is embraced by a city, which is cradled in familiar woods and fields, which gather snow and rain for the Ohio River. The house has worked on me as steadily as I have worked on the house. I carry slivers of wood under my fingernails, dust from demolition in the corners of my eyes, aches from hammering and heaving in all my joints."
--

"The word house derives from an Indo-European root meaning to cover or conceal. I hear in that etymology furtive, queasy undertones. Conceal from what? From storms? beasts? enemies? from the eye of God? Home comes from a different root meaning 'the place where one lies.' That sounds less fearful to me. A weak, slow, clawless animal, without fur or fangs, can risk lying down and closing its eyes only where it feels utterly secure. Since the universe is going to kill us, in the short run or the long, no wonder we crave a place to lie in safety, a place to conceive our young and raise them, a place to shut our eyes without shivering or dread."

--

"No doubt it is only a musical accident that home and womb share the holy sound of om, which Hindu mystics chant to put themselves in harmony with the ultimate power. But I accept all gifts of language. There is in the word a hum of yearning."