Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black bandaged night. Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dicky-bird watching pictures of the dead.

Dylan Thomas, Under Milkwood, 1954.

Down the river from my house, I sit alone in my one-hour window of time enjoying the peace and tranquillity of Dylans magical view, while my teenage son plays rugby at Laugharne Athletic club. I wait, and I watch, beneath the castle as the crow enters the broken stone, as the seagull takes his leave of the beach, and the sun sets on Dylans writing shed. Am I dreaming when I read these words aloud above the bench beneath his shed? Was he dreaming when the houses spoke to him?

Two days ago I was in another place, back home in my ugly lovely town, in Cardiff, the place of my birth, to launch my book; The Secret of Home.

How well do you know your place and how well does your place know you? This was the question on my lips as I signed the books for home and soul.

Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

Dylan Thomas, Under Milkwood, 1954.

I looked into the eyes of sleepers, the people who had entered my scene, the extras and the passers-by. How well do they know their story? How well do they see it, and how well do they tell it, when they take time out from their busy fractured lives? I asked them; Tell me about your house:

One lady said: I live within half a house, and I want it to be a whole house, and then she listened, as I told her about the house; that whatever you say about your home, you say about yourself. Her friends agreed that this was true for her: she often says she does not feel complete and now she is designing and building the rest of her home. Another said: Dont look at my house, it is not finished yet. And her friend replied; she lacks confidence low self-esteem, but not finished yet. At the age of 43 she was looking for something more.

A couple came to my table to ask me to sign their book, and I asked them about their house, the husband said; we live in a house that used to be divided. I said to them; whatever you say about your house you say about yourself, and the wife replied; it is not divided anymore. Their house was once split in two, the dividing wall is still there, but the house is no longer divided, only part of the plan is still occupied by the house next door. They told me they had both been married before. Unhappy marriages divided their families.

I really love my house, was what another visitor said. I asked her if she felt really good about herself, and she said yes.

I journeyed deeper into their homes; I took them deeper into their stories. I took them into the area of the home that I call HEAVEN, and one woman asked me; What if it is really small? This area of the home that holds the stories about how perfect our lives could be, about our limitations and the choices that we make. How big would she like this area to be, and if she cannot have it any bigger, then how much better can she make it seem?

We are the authors of our own life stories, the house we live in is a theatre of the soul, it tells our story, it shows our life the way it is. It is now the time to look into the mirror of belonging; it is time to see our own reflection in the home, for this can make a difference in our lives.