My Favorite Place

When my son was in third grade, he had a writing assignment - to write a poem about his "favorite place" at home. My husband and I had been divorced since Sean was four, so he had two homes to chose from. At the time, my ex-husband still lived in the cabin we had built, up in the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. "The Land" is still is a wonderful, magical place, with a fast-moving, clear water creek, sounds of coyotes howling at dusk, and sunsets that bathe the landscape in golden light and create tall black silhouettes out of nearby fir trees.

I've been thinking about "home" lately. What makes a place your "home'? Is it the place where you grew up? Is home the place that is most familiar to you? Is it where your family lives? Or is it the place you most fit in and most prefer to be? Is it on the road and out of a suitcase? Is it the land of your ancestors? Or is it, as the saying goes, "where the heart is"?

I find I have no answers. And so, as I contemplate whether or not to leave my West Coast home, the place I am most comfortable and where I have lived the longest, to move back to where I grew up on the East Coast, the poem my eight year old son wrote sprang to mind.

My Favorite Place - by Sean Emdy

My favorite place is on the porch.
It is so peaceful too.
And when the sun is setting,
who would know such a beautiful view.

We lived in many places, Sean and I, before his untimely death at 17. Even though neither Jim or I lived at The Land at the time of Sean's death, it is the place we chose to scatter Sean's ashes. By any definition, it was certainly "home" to Sean.