There’s No Place Like Home: Well maybe
The famous line from The Wizard of Oz, that everyone remembers is, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Most of us can relate to that. At least we used to.
I love the snugness of my house. Each of the rooms, with their distinctive flavor. There are quiet rooms where I can just sit and think, the noisier ones where the sounds of nature fill the air through open windows, unfortunately, at times, followed by the cacophony of cars, lawnmowers, and blowers, and neighbor’s housebound kids being released from homeschool, the calming rooms, where we can relax, vege out on TV if we want or grab the latest novel that we’re into and sink into a chair and become one with the characters in the story. Yes, there’s no place like home. Well maybe…
We are now in quarantine, Day…Whatever. Rooms have changed their designated assignments now that there are multiple people in the house all of the time; as do time slots for those rooms. You now need an office room, for work. You now expect there to be more quiet rooms, so that people can have their quiet space when needed. It appears that headphones are used more often. Don’t get me wrong, I love the additional together time, but one gets used to certain routines.
Home is the place to be, when you are allowed to leave it and interact with the world, usually on a daily basis. That has been replaced by interacting at a distance both physically and virtually. Personally, for me, there is a limit as to how many virtual meetings one can and wants to attend.
Then there are the glitches in our virtual world. I enjoy seeing my writing and storytelling friends on screen and hearing the tales that they spin in the work they do. However, when the pictures don’t appear and the voices are choppy, and especially the most frustrating of all glitches, the sound does not sync with the video (don’t you just hate that), I feel like I’m in a very poorly designed version of “there’s no place like home”.
Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall and listen to a conversation; to hear what everyone else was talking about? Well, I’ve been there, at my last Writing Group, and trust me you really don’t want to be that. Though I loved all of the stories being shared, no one knew I was there and I couldn’t be heard, even when I wanted to say something. That’s scary. Imagine how many people, could be listening in on your every interaction. And for all of you listening right now while I’m writing this…Just STOP IT! When I want you to read this, I’ll share it.
Home now becomes a place of seclusion, even when you are with those you love; where cabin fever can reign, a periodic happy place. Be thankful, though, for things could be worse. I feel for the homeless at this time of quarantine and those that have difficulty just being in homes, where it never was the “no place like home” to begin with or has become a “no place to be…at home”.
I hope this passing phase of our existence works itself out sooner than later; when we can go back to some semblance of what life was like, with a greater understanding of what has happened to us and that allows us to make our global home better. So we can truly say, “There is no place like home.”
