There is this magical scene in Almost Famous where the band in the movie, alongside their crew, are lounging on their tour bus. Elton John's Tiny Dancer is playing and one by one, they all starting singing along. Throughout this Patrick Fugit's Character, William Miller turns to Kate Hudson's character, the mysterious Penny, and tells her ''I have to go home.'' She then replies, ''You are home.''
As Penny implies, home does not just mean your house. It also means the abstract too. Your friends, your memories, your laughter, they are your home, too.
Home to me, when it comes down to the abstract - is going to my local supermarket, which I have lived next door to all my life, and recognizing the staff. Sitting outside the Leeds canal watching the water slowly fold into waves, constantly pondering why they don't just put benches there. Home is being awake at four AM listening to Belle & Sebastian. Home is not brushing my hair ever and wearing clunky too-big-for-me blue docs. Home is writing terribly, but not caring because that's what makes me happy. Home is sitting on trains from London to Leeds and planning the times I will get off at the stations I don't usually. Home is watching you tube videos and learning from them. Home is going to gigs, getting extremely sweaty, but not giving a fuck about it. Home is in a cup of tea. Home is woven into the Yorkshire accent. Home is lots of things.
And, although home is not limited to your house - my house is still very much home for me; the little old brick house I've lived in for 17 years, in my small box room which has pink and black walls because my 12 year old sister designed it. This is home. I very much fear the day we will have to sell it, which is silly because I don't just want to live here forever. I just don't want anyone else to own it. The idea of the house I've come to know so well being changed my strangers is awful - Hopefully I'll be rich enough to buy them out and change it back.One of my friends from school actually moved into our family friends old house, and when I walked past and looked in last year - I noticed they had redecorated EVERYTHING. Stripped down the wall, changed the door, the garden, everything was (and is now) different. I paused looking solemnly at it until my friend's mother came out to the driveaway. I must have looked like a really melancholy burglar to her.
As much as I complain that I am bound to the small city life - and that I wish to seek the great perhaps and travel the vast world as a ambitiously hungry adventurer, there will always be a part of me which will never leave small city life and will never want to leave small city life. Even when faced with the most exciting of places, they don't provide the warmth I get from being in Small Town Leeds. It's the familiarity, the fact I can practically go anywhere and know it off the back of my hand, whilst also knowing the history and the in-jokes hidden in every street corner. It's something which I will always be grateful to be apart of.
Music for this blogpost
Home - Edward Sharp And The Magnetic Zeroes
Disenchanted - My Chemical Romance
You Know Where To Find Me - Imogen Heap
Leeds United - Amanda Palmer
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