The Place We Call Home

• ‘Let’s Roll’ Tank – Nordstrom (similar), Jacket – Recycled Design, Bracelets – Souvenirs, Jeans – hm, Boots – Joe’s, Sunnies – Cassette, Lip – MUFE #8, photos by – Sugar Photography

Remembering home as a little girl, a certain old barn captivated my attention — always wondering what stories it told. Now grown, it’s comforting to see it each time I return — unchanged and just as endearing.

Makes me wonder if my own children are capturing similar experiences that will one day remind them of where they came from.

Almost eight years ago (sheesh), we left Colorado to venture as newlyweds to make a new life together. So much has happened since then …

At what point does a new place turn into the place we call home?

For me, it took five years. You could even say the defining point was when I became a mother. All of a sudden, the littlest of things mattered just a little bit more — like what percent milk was best (you know because fattening whole milk now becomes the goal for growing children).

Home is where you wake to, “Mama, I had a good sleepy” and where songs and eskimo kisses finish day’s end.

A sidewalk lined with chalk ABC’s and 123’s.

The family quilt sewn from the great grandmother you never met — giving warmth to generations of grandchildren.

Home is closets that need purging and floors that need sweeping. Or maybe it’s a complete and utter disaster. But it’s yours.

Backyard picnics or candles just because. A meal that becomes a gathering.

Home is Daddy coming home — it sounds like Christmas morning.

Roll-on-the-floor tickle fights with never-ending pleas for more.

Building forts and make-believe.

Evening walks, holding hands — like a chain of paper dolls.

Home is ours for the making. No matter the place.

Where memories become the most beautiful pictures our mind can paint so that nothing can ever erase them.