House/home/life

They say a house is not a home.

A home is where one feels safe physically and emotionally. It doesn't mean that everything is perfect.

A home can be anywhere from a studio to a château.

My first favorite "home" was a condo 394 The Riverway in Boston. I lived their five years with my daughter and one year with an exchange student. It was my first "only mine" home and every minute in it made me feel good.

Although the company flat in Môtiers, Switzerland was ugly, it was a refuge from a hard working situation. The culture change from US to Switzerland was not as great as from city to bucolic. I fell in love with the countryside.

The third home I had was the 11 years at the Francois Lehman, Grand Saconnex complex or the international ghetto because so many people worked at the alphabet UN organizations in walking distance. I made not only friends, but developed family of choice members, wrote books.

There was something special about sitting at the kitchen table on a Sunday morning, a cup of hot chocolate and watching now fall on the château across the street.

This week I had a revelation about a "home" that surprised me. It applies not just to the people I am visiting, but to those that I know in other places.

The next step up from home was my discovery. The word is life. A life is embedded in a home. It has nothing to do with the furniture, art but everything to do with memories, good and bad.Some of the people I know have been in their homes more than 50 years. That's a lot of memories. That's a lot of life.