A house and a home are two very different things, but one can certainly be a part of the other. A house is a place where you reside, a place of shelter where you eat and sleep, but a home is much more than that. A home ensures safety, comfort, and a sense of belonging. And for me, my house happens to be my home as well. Having lived there all of my life, it is all I have known and what I have grown accustomed to. I would not trade my home for anywhere else. It has become my safe haven that I can always count on. The house itself is not what makes me feel this way, but a combination of living there with the awareness of my five senses coming together. I have made memories and developed certain habits that could not have been recreated anywhere else. This is what makes this place mean everything it does to me.

Each home has its own scent, which can translate to taste. It is hard to classify the scent of your own home because you are so used to the smell. However, as soon as it changes it is easy to tell that something is different. Walking through the door on a Monday, cleaning day, the surrounding air is filled with a fresh lemon scent. The rugs have lost their musty smell that had been accumulated that week, and the wood, with just a bit more shine, gives off a nice light pine aroma. Whenever something is cooking in the house whether it be a batch of juicy double fudge brownies, or my moms famous torilla española, the succulent smells will hover over the second and third floors, making mouths water and alluring people to the scene of the kitchen. My parents room always smells a bit different than the rest of the house. Its a combination of my dad’s musky manly perfume mixed in with my mom’s light flowery one. It does not strongly overpower the room it is just noticeably there. However, when we have guests their side of the second floor hallway is completely overpowered by their smell. When my great aunt comes to stay, it is a heavy rosie perfumed fragrance that gets soaked up into the walls, air, and floor.

Certain things have a place in my home and their presence brings a sense of security. For example, entering my home you are greeted with the foyer painted a bold ruby red. Since i am so used to it, whenever I see a color similar to this one it gets associated with the foyer. There are three ceramic plates, hand painted with red flowers and green detailing, hanging in the kitchen brought back from a trip to Spain. The desk in the kitchen is always full of cards from birthdays and other celebrations. The white wooden cabinets are detailed with copper painted knobs to go with the peachy theme in the rest of the room. There is a maroon red carpet centered with the table. Its stringy ends get intertwined between your toes as you eat your meals. Underneath are the wooden floors which have an old worn look to them as they were placed there in the late 1800s when the house was built. Running your bare toes along the floors, there are added scratches and scrapes from our early childhood when the kitchen was the designated tussling room for my brother and I before dinnertime; or from the numerous occasions when we failed to listen as my mom told us to take off our filthy cleats, and snow boots full of dirt and ice before entering the house.

There are certain sounds I associate with home and when I hear them I know where I am. Weekday mornings start off with the pounding alarm going off under my pillow and the distant sound of shower water down the hall, just loud enough to make it through my closed door. On the weekends, I awake to the sound of metal rattling together as my mom takes out the pans to get the pancakes started, along with the murmurs of voices loud enough to reach me three flights above. That same night I will fall asleep to the tiptoeing of my brother at an unclear rhythm, trying to remember which slabs of the hard wood floor do not creak, as to not wake everyone up with his return. I’ve grown accustomed to the pattern of walking that everyone in my family has. My moms is more of a slow even skid which gets slower but louder as she makes her way up or down the stairs. My dad and brother have more of a fast pace step although my brother’s resembles more of a thudding gallop, while my dad keeps an even slow jog accompanied by the loose clunking coins in the overly filled pockets of his dress pants. When I sit in the kitchen alone, silence is overruled by the constant ticking of the old fashioned wall clock, along with the hovering almost UFO like sounds coming from the refrigerator.

Overall, my perspective using my five senses are what make my home my own. It brings me a sense of comfort knowing what they are.