Art Studio®
Community / September, 29th, 2018
Walk a Mile with Me
This year I had the privilege of participating in an art project for my community titled Walk a Mile with Me. I had been given a pair of blank white Toms shoes and left to my own devices. I was to somehow paint what home meant to me, on a pair of shoes smaller than my own two feet! Hmm.. What does home mean to me? I pondered on this question for a while.
You see, I grew up in the city of Toronto. I was by definition a “city slicker” (according to a few northerners that I now call family). I had a childhood filled with endless activities and choices. Everything was just a hop, skip and jump away from my home. I lived the city-life for a quarter of a century. Never moving, never wavering, until.. I fell in love with the farthest thing from a city-boy and together we moved “up north”. Well for me anyway, for him it was, and continues to be, “down south”.
Up north has been our home now for the last five years and I’ve got to admit;
I absolutely love the serenity of it all. Things move a lot slower up here but it’s
a breath of fresh air really. I’ve grown to adore the country lifestyle and to top
it off, we’re now a hop, skip and jump away from a beautiful beach!
So then, what is home? I thought about painting a beach scene on the shoes. Then, I thought of painting the Toronto Skyline on one shoe and my new hometown on the other… But no, that wasn’t quite right. These were places that I had lived, where I grew up, where I found true love, where I adopted the cutest pup alive(!!) and where I learned to live life as an adult. Sure, I could easily call these places home, yet they weren’t the definition of what home meant to me.
You see, home is where you make it. It could be a million, trillion miles away from everything you once knew, but if you’re there with people that you love and doing things that bring you joy, then that becomes home.
I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter where, it matters who.
Home for me, is not a place. It’s not a bunch of buildings formed in such a way that make for a beautiful skyline.
It is neither a beautiful serene beach that my dog and I immensely enjoy. It’s who I’m with when I’m there.
Therefore… I painted silhouettes of my family, my life and some of my fondest memories.
On those white Toms shoes, I painted home.
Home is not a building, nor a place.
It's the comfort when seeing a familiar face.
You may live somewhere for many a year,
yet that doesn't mean your home is here.
Home is not simply where you reside.
It's a warm embrace you feel deep inside.
Some believe home is all of the above.
But for me home is with those I love.
- Cristina D.
- Cristina D.
What does home mean to you? Comment below to share your thoughts...