Home is not a physical place, a place I own, where I hang my jacket and eat a daily meal. Home is Daragh. The voices of friends, cackling over a long-distance connection. The jasmine tree in my parents' garden. The lemony scent of Californian redwood on a rainy day. The memory of Mom peeling lychees in soft evening light. Banh mi with Dad, smiling wryly across a laminated table. Irish fields in full hawthorn bloom. The full moon on hushed summer nights.

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"The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood."— Rebecca Solnit

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