Home: A Safe Haven or a Place of Conflict?

Sara Allwright, ,

Write about your dream home.

My dream home is where I will feel at peace.

Our homes are practical objects. They are built to give us shelter and a place to live. To many the home is usually linked to stability, security, happy families and protection. We use them to work, play, socialise, and entertain our friends. They also offer us with a place to relax and rest. We personalise them to make it familiar, which in turn can make it comfortable; physically, mentally, or both. We do this by investing our personalities, status, securities, wealth, memories and identities in these structures. But we also rely on the emotional value of home.

The idea of home has a meaning for everyone. We often speak of our hometown, our birthplace, family background, nostalgia of a time, place, and home with fond reverie. It is a place where one can locate their identity.

A ‘home’ is the house we make our own.

Gaston Bachelard once said:

Our house is our corner of the world – Our first universe – In the life of a human being, the house maintains the person through the storms of the heavens and through those of life.

Home is a space where the occupants are hidden from view, locked away behind closed doors, surrounded by enclosing walls. These walls give us the privacy that offers the only reliable hiding place from the rest of the public gaze. They are the places in which we usually hold memories of family and childhood events. 

On the other hand, the home can also be a place of conflict, abuse, loneliness, entrapment and fear. Concealed from public view it holds things hidden from human eyes.

There are many who have no safe haven. Some people have lost or never had that protection. They have no place to live or a place to call home.

Homelessness not only brings a loss of home but also brings a sense of isolation and estrangement. Many people, like me, have moved house many times. I have also been homeless (a young teenager) and experienced the isolation, loneliness and feelings of abandonment. I do not have childhood memories of a safe, warm and loving environment. Thus, my concept of ‘home’ is somewhat tainted.

I believe Marianna Torgovonick sums up the ambiguities of home in the foregoing:

Home is the place we live, lungs expanding and contracting, air clean and healthy, loving parents, wholesome children, all that in sync. Home is the place of shelter; protection against natural and man-made catastrophes, doors locked and barred to violence and destruction, windows open to the world but able to shut at will. That’s why the plight of refugees, or civilians in wars, of the homeless, is so terrifying. No place to live, no place to shelter, no place to get away from it all. Home is the Utopian ideal, home is what we have to believe is safe, where we have to carry on as though it will be safe. Home is the last frontier.

My dream home is a where I will feel at peace.

Oh, and it will have a large studio so I can paint and dance to my hearts content!

🎨🖌️🧑‍🎨🖼️💃🕊️✌️❤️

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Published by Sara Allwright

Fine Artist

56 Comments

  2. What a wonderful write and such truth. I think the ideal home at least at the time that you have it as if you’re happy with the person you’re with and they become your home. If you feel loved cared for and appreciated and the person makes you feel safe then that person becomes your home. I am sorry that you were without a home and I’m grateful I have never been homeless but I know that have an awesome money have been in houses that were not home because they were not safe. I am also sorry that you did not have that as a child and a teenager especially. You’re a talent painter and writer and I hope one day that you have a place where you feel completely safe and happy and where you can shut out the world when it gets ugly that’s exactly what I do. Thank you for sharing how you feel about this. I really enjoyed it reading about it. Many blessings to you.

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    1. Yes, I so agree with you. To feel loved, cared for, and appreciated by someone who makes you feel safe becomes your safe haven, your home.
      Thank you for reading my post, but more importantly, thank you for your thoughtful, kind, and reassuring words. I too, hope you have a safe and happy place to retreat to, to shut out the world when needed. ❤️🌻

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  9. it’s funny how people that live in beautiful homes complete with all the distractions of the frivolously or even well to do will complain of the lack of peace or harmony. it just goes to show you that it cannot be bought and demands a sense of self forged through wisdom.

    may all the structures that shelter you from now on be places of peace! Mike

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    1. You are so right, Mike. A place of safety and peace is not gained from frivolity, alarms, wealth… it’s far more than that! It’s from within, love and trust.
      Thank you Mike for your insightful comments. All the best, Sara 🌻

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  14. Brilliant articulation. It is such a paradox that a home can be safe yet dangerous. There can be love and be unloved at the same time. I can relate to both as well.
    A home should be a place of peace comfort and safety unfortunately these remain dreams for many.
    The quotes are spot on.
    Much love 💜💜💜

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  17. Super Post Sara. We meet in every part you mention and I think it’s fantastic to have exposed it with such an image.
    Wow, WOW, BRAVO
    Belle journée à toi mon amie.
    🖼️🎨🖌️❤️

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  18. So many truths in this, Sara. 💕 ✨ This is why I have often called myself the “wandering soul” with no place to call “home” because of those earlier upbringing facets (not the good kind, unfortunately!) you mention which have scarred us quite a bit. I moved around a lot, same as you, not always the best moves, but sometimes necessary, too. Turns out, I do like being lost, but my home now is my peace, and it shall remain that way. Peace is so much needed. 🙏 I hope we always have peaceful abodes ❤️ we deserve that, I think 🤗

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  20. That old adage ‘Home is where the heart is’ rings so true.

    The fires in LA were quite poignant when I saw this prompt today. Yesterday I’d seen a video of someone sifting through the ashes, to find a wedding ring. It’s the memories these homes hold that are so important.

    I’m going to get a neon sign that says ‘welcome to the kitchen Disco’.

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