Finding home

I've discovered (or perhaps rediscovered) a certain aspect of voyeurism living in my teacher/hero's house. I'm here for another week, and each day I find out all sorts of new things about him, as well as his family. He and his wife are both playing in one of the finest symphony orchestras in the world. This I've known since I met them. For that reason alone, they inspire a degree of worship in me that I haven't felt in a long time. I have respected them both so much for the careers they maintain, and for the seemingly exotic lives they lead. After living in their house, among the objects that they see each day, I am blown away.

The house itself is fairly simple. It is situated on the side of a steep hill, a feature which makes me homesick for my Appalachian mountains. Growing up, we always had a set or two of windchimes on our deck. Here the windchimes are everywhere. There are at least six sets outside the bedroom windows, and seven more outside the kitchen. The tree in the front yard has windchimes hanging from several limbs. It is the sound of comfort.

The kids of the family are both in high school, but their childhood art still hangs on every wall. In between a magic marker drawing of a unicorn, and a crayola spaceship, there hangs an original Salvadore Dali sketch. Seriously. Don't you love these people already? All the walls are covered in family photos from parties, the birthday cards they make for their friends, and old movie photos. There are also family pictures in Rome, Japan, China... you name it.

From the beginning, I knew that these were incredible people. I knew that I idolized their professional achievements. But what I find today is that I cherish their degree of "normal." Their home shouts "WELCOME," then chuckles "We love here," then whispers "We are extraordinary." Most importantly, it makes me realize that I don't want to become a carbon copy of who they are, but instead I want to become the best version of myself, so that one day maybe my house will welcome some other wildly confused new adult.