Home

By Roger B. Rueda

It seems that Muse is screaming! I don't know where is its home? But as it were it has many an idea about home now. Is it going home to somewhere and my writing would seem like an abandoned well? I don't know. Anyway, here is Muse's brainstorm:

One of my students asked me why is it that home doesn't use a preposition in statements like these: go home and I stayed home . Why with other places like for instance—go to the plaza and I stayed at the plaza —we use prepositions to and at respectively? Certainly, for the second example at can be used but this is commonplace to British. But if you want to sound more American, home is used adverbially.

Grammatically, the word home is not just a noun but also an adjective, a verb, and an adverb. That is why in the case of the above examples home here is used as an adverb. So it is used as other adverbs are used syntactically. For one thing, a word considered as both a preposition and adverb is distinguished as either when the former has an object while the latter doesn't have.

As a noun, home refers to a place, town, or country where a person usually lives: I work in the city proper but my home is in La Paz ; When I retire, I'll make my home in Estancia; and Africa is the home of the lion . To mean a building for a residential function and as physical existence house is used .

Home can also mean a place from which a person, thing, etc. come originally: San Joaquin is the home of peanut-candy; ACSI Business and Computer School is the home of world-class education in Iloilo City ; Barotac Nuevo is the home of Tamasak Jaycees . It can also mean a place where children without parents, old age, people who are ill etc. live and are looked after: an old folk's home or a home for the elderly and a nursing home .

Home is an adjective, too: home comforts and home produce . Home here is a qualifier adjective.

When home is used as a verb, it is inflected as: home, homes, homed, and homing. This means to go or return to one's residence or base of operations, to be guided to a target automatically, as by means of radio waves or to move or lead toward a goal: The investigators were homing in on the truth.

Home is synonymous with commorancy , domicile, dwelling, house, residence, and residency; haunt, locality, range, site, and stamping ground; or fatherland, homeland, land, mother country, motherland, and soil.

Etymologically, home is hom in Middle English , from Old English hAm which means village or home. It is related to Old High German heim home according to my Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

In Computer Science, home means the starting position of the cursor on a text-based computer display, usually in the upper left corner of the screen and a starting position within a computer application, such as the beginning of a line, file, or screen or the top of a chart or list.

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Personally, as I perpend on it, home has parts, which serve me with meanings. For instance, its roof serves as my shelter, protection from the elements, safety, and security. Only that I don't like galvanized iron roof. It is noisy when the rain blasts on it.

The outer walls give protection, privacy, safety, separateness, and strength. Frankly speaking I am afraid of burglars and scofflaws.

Its foundation provides me solid footing, stability, predictability, and permanence.

The door is for the arriving and leaving, welcoming guests, privacy, and security as well.

The window is letting in light, connection with the outside world, awareness, and perspective. It gives me a wider cognizance even if I'll just dawdle inside my room.

The living room provides me a place for relaxation, socialization, playfulness, entertainment, and hospitality. When I'm bored staying inside my room, I bring many poetry reads here then begin to phantasmagorize .

The kitchen is very salient as it is where my nutrition, nurturance, creativity, and emotional security are.

My bedroom is where I take rest. It is quiet and it is where I sleep. It gives intimacy, privacy, and awakening. It where Muse shows up and I have to seize its intellection.

The bathroom is important for my personal hygiene, body awareness, and appearance.

For storing belongings, secrets, and memories I have the closet. It sometimes produces a nervous shivery apprehension: my grandmother's photos and of those dead relatives are kept in there. Albums of my school days are also here. Yet, they make me sad, too: Former classmates and the good times draw me rather to a poignant state.

And because of the many things I get from the house where I live now, for me it is a home. For one, my Muse is persnickety and transferring perhaps to another house may mean literary drought—or I will adopt rain seeding as what had been my resort when El Niño came.

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Speaking of home, Home Life , the magazine where I started to publish my poems has opened a section for poetry review. Readers are invited to critique the 2004 winning poems in both English and Filipino categories. Dr. Leoncio P. Deriada , Home Life poetry editor is going to choose best critiques for publication.

Here are the winning pieces with their authors and dates of publication: Mater Dolorosa in Two Voices by Merlie M. Alunan of Tacloban City (April-May) is first placer, second is Carnival Exhibit 3: Fighting Spiders by Camilo M. Villanueva Jr. of Manila (October), and third is The Young Wife by Lourdes H. Vidal of Antipolo City (February).
For Filipino category Isda by Kristian S. Cordero of Iriga City (October) is first, second is Maneho by Raymund P. Reyes of Tacloban City (February), and third is Nang Mapipi ang Iskolar by Genevieve L. Asenjo of Tobias Fornier , Antique (March).
Dr. Deriada receives mail at: Division of Humanities, UP in the Visayas , Iloilo City .

If you don't have copies of Home Life past issues, they are available at St. Paul's in SM City and Mary Mart. Past issues are sold at Php 10.

For enquiries, send me email at: banitawriters@writing.com.