Dear Readers, 

 

Unlike Dorothy, I don’t have any magic ruby slippers to click my heels together and wish myself home. Thankfully, I rarely need them though, as leaving home just has never been top of mind. Oh sure, I do love my second home... The beach! But even when there, I find myself, after the appropriate amount of time spent, thinking about home. Home is, of course, a physical structure, a town, a community. My house, Franklin, Williamson County; are all manifestations of home for me. But really, the truth about “home” is that it doesn’t truly exist in those entities alone, but rather in a feeling, an idea, something you cannot touch necessarily but that you feel in your heart and mind when the word home is said.

 

As I said, I don’t leave home much – literally or figuratively. My entire family lives within about a five-mile square radius and I even get to work with some of them! I have had a close-knit family my whole life and grew up in several “homes” away from home that were those of grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins. I am so glad that my children have that same opportunity to be with family so close by.

 

I cannot imagine living anywhere but here, and naturally say about our town and community – “there’s no place like home,” with sincerity and enthusiasm. My heart is here and not just in the four walls of a house, but in the faces I see daily that fill my life with love and purpose and meaning. THAT is what makes a home.

 

You, no doubt, also walk around yours and see pictures of people who mean the most, who made you who you are and then those who you have done the same. Memories, occasions, trips, LIFE, happening all around you both in real time and in memorial – inside your home. When you take all of that with you when you go, you keep home with you at all times... So you are never really far away when you realize what it really means to be home. That’s why they say, “home is where the heart is," right? Because it doesn’t have to be a building but, ultimately, those we love the most, places we love the most, memories we treasure and keep.

 

September brings fall and, for many of us, many memories to be made in our homes are about to take place. There will be football games watched with friends, holidays spent with family, activities and local fun enjoyed with our community. To me, fall feels like home. Williamson County is never more beautiful than in the fall and my mind is never more full of smells, sounds or feelings than this time of year.

 

I hope you enjoy this issue filled with the sights, sounds and feelings of what it means to be home in Williamson County. With every page, I see, once again, just what a blessing it is to live here. Because, for all of us lucky enough to do so, we say in joy – there is NO place like home!

 

Shelly Robertson Birdsong