A little love letter to the place I call home (for now)

Dear home (for now),

I wish everyone got the chance to come and visit you in their lifetime.

It's something most humans seem to have in common: a desire to share our homes with others. There's a want in us to show off the things that make this particular place the one we've chosen to live in, to mark it out and say, "See? This is why, on all the planet, I'm here." To see the beauty of it all again, fresh through someone else's eyes, is a way of validating the choice to make this place yours.

It's one of the reasons I love traveling. Traversing the streets and seeing the little spots of beauty hidden among the neighbourhoods; I love to imagine what it would be like to live there, walking the routes every day until I'd noticed every beautiful thing about the place twice over. It's such a pleasure, to have someone show me all the things they think are best about the place that they live in. I love watching someone point out the things that make somewhere home to them: a view, a flower, a chair, a scent on the breeze.

I have a habit of falling head-over-heels for each new 'home' I live in. Even if it's only temporary, I can't imagine a better place to live than the one I'm in right now. And since there's something special about celebrating and sharing your home, here's a little love letter to the place that is home, if only for now.

To the spot of sunshine that hits the rocking chair in the morning:

Thank you for providing a warm place in winter to sit and eat/read/nap/talk/catch up on Instagram.

To the breeze that rocks the hammock on the deck:

Thank you for cooling me down on hot summer days, when it becomes unbearable to do anything but lie in the shade with a book and an iced drink, waiting it out until the sun has set.

To the flowers that bloom along the brook autumn:

Thank you for brightening early mornings that would otherwise feel bleak with the foreboding chill of winter coming. It doesn't really get that cold here, but I am a wuss when it comes to cooler temperatures, and I appreciate the pockets of brightness among the biting breeze.

To the neighbourhood birds:

It brings me no end of delight when you deign to pick up the scraps of my lunch, thrown to you from a safe distance, even though you've just filled up on superior seed from the old Italian man across the road. I could, and have, spent hours watching you splash in the bird bath, sing from the balcony, and occasionally pull up the most astonishingly giant grubs from the backyard grass.

To the library and the yoga studio and the park and the hairdresser and the grocery store and the bus stop:

Thank you for catering for my every need, and for all only ever being a short walk or bike ride away.

Dear home (for now):

One day we will probably leave, to move a short or long distance away, somewhere with new routines to fall into and beautiful things to notice. But for now, you are home, and I'm lucky to call you such.