home?

With eleven days before I move on from the glorious town of Flip Flop, I am looking around this house and wondering exactly what it was I considered home.

I came home today after being over the hill for five solid days (when one way of my communte is consistently an hour and a half long, I opt to couch surf). The living room was tastefully redecorated (the usual piles of other people's stuff mysteriously vanished in my absence. Bravo, housemateys!) and the corners appointed with regal Costco houseplants. I had the odd sensation of going into someone else's house. Fortunately, the homey piles of dishes still held court in the sink and the linoleum was still curling up in front of the dishwasher. After a second, more penetrating glance, the house still had its familiar level of decay.

My perpetually messy room has become the vortex in my packing operation. Warehouse, abandoned studio, sty-- it wears many guises, but not that of "bed chamber." The floor is covered. I had a brief vision of it's potential in my mind- a peaceful, uncluttered space, where I could rest, surrounded by a few small art pieces. In some ways, it has ceased to be my room. In a few short days, the M*ster will be calling it hers. It is slowly morphing back into a space that is not my own.

Is it the comforting, familiar mess that says "home?" Or does "home" simply mean a place that I intend to stay at for more than 30 days into the future (assuming a month to month lease)? Are certain things or people necessary to a home? I am teetering on second base, at a figurative apogee, at once fleeing from and looking for home.