What is Home?
A place? a person? a feeling? a thing we have? find? build?
What, not where is home? I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I think we’ve been wired to think of home as a place, and a little part of us will always look for that. Like if no place immediately comes to mind, it’s because it’s still out there for us to find.
The more I travel and talk to friends who have moved abroad, the less I believe home is a city, a town, or a house. It’s becoming a little harder to believe in the mythical place where you can always return where it feels like a perfect fit. People change, as do places. Map coordinates will always fall a little short of describing home.
They say home is where the heart is, but this, too, has started to feel off. I’ve got pieces of my heart sprinkled all over the globe, or if not all over the world, at least, there are enough miles separating them that I couldn’t possibly call home. Their intersection is probably somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Even if I had the coordinates, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.
But if home is not a where then what is home?
As I write this, I feel like I should disclose that I do not have a definite answer. I’m still working on it. I can tell you where I’ve found home and maybe we’ll glean something from that together.
I’ve found home in a song from my teenage years, suddenly playing on the speakers at a clothes store. Looking around to see several people nodding their heads and lip-singing along to the angsty lyrics.
I’ve found home in a book—in many books: old ones I’ve read so many times I should know the words by heart and new ones that I came across just at the right time — marveling at how the author found the words to describe something I felt but hadn’t found words for.
I’ve found home in the kindness of a couple of strangers who shared a drink with me on a day I was feeling low; and a stranger in a park who found home in my accent and spent some time sharing his favorite things about the city I was visiting at the time. I found home talking to a fellow traveler after we noticed we were both journaling in the park, and I found home among the strangers speaking a language I learned and half-forgot at the next table in a restaurant.
I’ve found home in the scent of a particular pine tree on a random hike which suddenly brought forth so many childhood memories I felt like I had traveled in time.
I’ve found home in my goddaughter’s smile; I find it there every time she shines my way.
I’ve found home in hour-long phone calls with my brother.
I’ve found home in a sweater I half borrowed, half stole from my father. It’s baggy and too big on me, but it feels comfier than any other piece of clothing.
I’ve found home in a vase of tulips I bought for myself, and kept on the bookshelf by the door, so well cared for they lasted longer than they should have.
I’ve found home in a landscape so breathtaking, so enveloping, so overwhelmingly beautiful that it seemed to erase every worry and question in my head.
I’ve found home in a cafe filled with books and fellow book lovers.
I’ve found home in friends, family, and strangers. I’ve found home in well-worn items and familiar spaces and unknown places.
And when I can’t find it, when it doesn’t sneak up on me, or I’m too far from the things and people who help me build it, when all else fails, if you will, I write. I can always craft a home of words to dwell in for a while.
What do you think? What is home? A place? a person? a feeling? a thing we have? find? build?
Written in response to the prompt What is Home? Keep ’em coming Kern Carter
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