Now that finals are over, the best place to be right now is home. The word "home" means many things to many different people. Home doesn't always mean a place that you grew up in.
Over the past few years, I've realized that my version of home is more than my place of residence. Home is all about the people that make you feel safe and comfortable. It's the memories that result from special moments throughout our lives and guide us back when we feel at our lowest or when we feel like we have lost our way.
This time of year, home comes in the form of food, and lots of it. A home cooked meal reminds us of our roots and the memories of childhood, a time when we were so carefree that our biggest worry was if Santa was going to drop down the chimney with a bunch of presents waiting for us under the tree, not what our final grades for the semester are.
In the film, "A Hundred Foot Journey", the main character, Hassan, and his family immigrate to France from their motherland of India. Hassan is a culinary prodigy with humble beginnings. As he climbs and succeeds the culinary ladder to become one of the best chefs in France, he slowly begins to forget why he loved to cook in the first place.
There's a scene from this film that takes place in the middle of the night. Hassan finds himself back in the kitchen of a highly innovative and futuristic restaurant he currently works at. He sees a shadow of a man that turns out to be one of his prep cooks. This prep cook is eating a traditional Indian meal that his wife has sent to him from India. He offers Hassan a bite as he sees Hassan's eyes food with envy. As Hassan takes that first bite, he breaks down and starts to get emotional. When he cooks, each of the spices he adds transcends him back to memories of his now-late mother and his childhood days of her teaching him the ways of the kitchen.
When you're away from family a good portion out of the year, home takes place in the shape of the friends that you make. If you're lucky, those friends become your second family, which you create and share many memories that you have with your biological family.
Eventually, the time will come when we'll all graduate, leave our families and begin a new chapter in our lives. Some of us might find ourselves in a place in life where we won't know a single person and be unfamiliar with a new environment. We'll develop a new sense of home to help us adapt to our new surroundings. As the song says "just know you're not alone. I'm gonna make this place your home."
