Just got back from my first ever Poetry Salon. My work sponsored it this evening in collaboration with a couple of other organizations in celebration of Fair Housing Month and Poetry Month.
First thing I want to say is that my girls are amazing! They both wrote their own poem and stood in front of a room of 50 people and read their poem to everyone. This is something that I would never do! I would stand in front of people and read someone elses works, or words, I would sing, or lecture or teach but, write my own poem, with my own thoughts, feelings and emotions and then share it with a whole room of complete strangers? NEVER!
The topic of the poetry salon tonight was "Home". Most peoples poems were memories of what home was to them growing up. Then, about halfway through, a young man stood up. He was dressed all in black, with knee high black leather boots that laced up. He wore a long black trench coat, and had is long black hair tied back in a pony tail. His skin was very pale and he wore a single silver chain around his neck, adorned with a cross.
This man started by saying "I don't normally provide any introduction for my poetry but, I am compelled to say something about this one. When I was asked to prepare something for tonight, and was told that the topic was home, I had to really think about it. I pondered for quite a while about what home is to me." Then he read his poem. From the poem I gleaned that he didn't have a very supportive home life. He wasn't close to his parents and if he had siblings, he was not close to them either. Although he could have focused on negative things from his past (as other writers had) he chose to discuss home as people. The positive people in his life around whom he feels "at home". I was touched by his honesty, his sincerity and the vulnerability he showed, tearing down any preconceptions I had based on his appearance.As the night went on, I began thinking about what he had said "what does home mean to me"? I currently feel displaced, homeless, if you will. What was my home now is a foreign place for me, with foreign smells and foreign furnishings. I'm staying at my mothers house now, and although I lived here for several years during my adolesence, it doesn't feel like home to me, so much so that I haven't even unpacked any of my suitcases. I also spend at least one night a week at my friends house. But, this is not home either, this is his place and I am his guest. So, with no physical place to call home right now, what is home to me? Just the thought brings a tear to my eye. "home is where the heart is" or so the saying goes. If that is the case, where is my heart and then I can find my home.I believe right now, home is with my kids. Wherever we are together, that is home. It might be in the car, listening to Queen's greatest hits. Maybe it's walking through the store holding one anothers hands. Or perhaps it's sitting in a poetry salon with one on either side of me, laying their heads on my shoulder and the third sitting on my lap with my arms wrapped around her. Right now, they are my home.I know that as the years pass I will once again find a physical place to call home, somewhere I can relax, and make it my own space. A place where my children can be and grow, have fun, play, learn, make mistakes, argue, fight and love. And, perhaps, one day, that home will also include someone else. Someone with whom I fall in love, to whom I decide to give my heart and the two of us decide to make a home together. Who knows?
