Writing About Home

I've got this great Memoir book that my dear friend JC got me. While I'm not writing memoir, my book is memoir-esque enough for much of the book to be super helpful. One section asks the reader/writer to reflect on the following: Where is home?

Here's what I got so far:

Home is a split level house in the South End of Seattle. It's that house on Christmas in 1988, filled with the scents of homemade food. My big brother is home from college. I'm seven, toothless, smiling, wearing ruffles, warm, watching my handsome uncles tease my lovely, elegant aunties. I'm listening to my mom's laughter travel from the kitchen to every other room in the house. I see my dad standing like a redwood. I hold my Gram's hand, comb my Mother Dear's hair.

Home is a two bedroom home in Holly Park, a public housing section of Seattle where my grandma Mother Dear cooked the best stew and grew the best greens and filled crossword puzzles, stitched quilts, collected bric a brac, watched Mr. Ed, made me eat a teaspoon of honey and lemon and a sprig of spearmint when I was sick. It's her big hands, her soft hair, her gentle laugh, her warm hug, her sweetness.

Home is a two story brick house where my grandma Gram welcomed everyone, young and old, to make themselves comfortable and at home. I have a room there in my pre-adolescent years and it's there where i feel safest to be curious, different, creative. My imagination flourishes there, under the shade of her crab apple tree and behind the old shed that leaned into itself, even in the dirt of her rickety red, falling-down hot house, or in the ocean deep puddles under the pear tree after the rain, in the wormy worlds of the flower bed.

Home is mom's apple tarts. Gram's peach cobbler. Mother Dear's cornbread. Dad's cinnamon lattes. I can replicate them just close enough to be reminded that I miss them.

Home is, funny enough, wherever I am writing--just me and my thoughts, maybe a sputtering espresso machine behind me, setting the tempo to the slide of ink over paper or the click-clack of computer key. It's wherever I am that allows me to look back and smile, to look forward and know that it'll be alright.

Where is home for you?