by thief or by saint

"One’s home is like a delicious piece of piece you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening – the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life – and can never find again. After you leave home, you may find yourself feeling homesick, even if you have a new home that has nicer wallpaper and a more efficient dishwasher than the home in which you grew up, and no matter how many times you visit you may never quite cure yourself of the fluttery, homesick feeling in your stomach. Homesickness can even strike you when you are still living at home, but a home that has changed over the years, and you for the time – even if such a time existed only in your imagination – when your home was as delicious as you remember. You may search your family and your mind – just as you might search dark and winding country roads – trying to recapture the best time in your life, so that you might cure your homesickness with a second slice of that distant, faraway pie, but your search will end in vain, as you have lost the map that you told where to turn, and the restaurant has long ago burned down, and the baker who made the pie has gotten tired of waiting for you and has devoted her life to making tomato paste instead, but she is no good at it, and now you are lost in life, the darkness closing in on you, with nothing but a sad flutter in your stomach and a sour acidic taste in your mouth."

Horseradish, Lemony Snicket