I don't know why exactly, but I've been thinking a lot recently about
the idea of "home." Perhaps it's because I spent a good part of last
month in a place I think of as "home" only to get on a plane and fly
east for six hours in order to go "home". Or maybe because it's been a
rainy and cool fall in New England that has already filled me with the
sense of wanting to spend more time "at home." It might have to do with the fact that a while ago we read a book in
my book club called "Home" which I LOVED and everyone else hated.* Perhaps
it's because only rarely do I spend a day without interacting with
folks we've labeled "home"-less but who nonetheless have places they stay and identify themselves as being residents in our city and I've
been forced to wonder what exactly it is they are lacking that puts them
in this category. **
Perhaps I missed the day of kindergarten on which they
explained all this, but I've realized that I actually don't know
exactly what homes means. At least not entirely. But I feel that I
should, as home seems an incredibly important concept in our society,
what with homework and homing pigeons and TJMaxx HomeGoods and home
games and home plate and nursing homes and home schooling and the home
office and being home free and the general consensus that things are
better if they are homemade. This might seem incredibly naive, but how
am I supposed to know where my home is?
I wonder, is my home simply the place I live? In
that case, if I've moved about 15 times in my life, does that mean that
I've had 15 different, successive homes? Or is there something more
enduring about home, a sense that some places we live are more "home"
than others? Many of the "homeless" people I know return to the same
place every night to sleep be they friends' houses or shelters or
favorite (and seemingly proprietary) spots to sleep outdoors. Are those their homes?
Or is home the place where my family is? If so, what
family? Is it where Mr. L and I are together? Or the place where our
families of origin live? If it's both (or either really), then is one
who lives far from one's family destined to a life of feeling "not at
home"? If someone has no family, do we really say that that person has
no home? Not likely.
Perhaps home is the place where I feel I belong or feel I would
return to if I had a choice (is home, as the old adage goes, where your
heart is?) Is it the place I identify myself as being "from" or that I
generally identify the most with? Maybe, except that if these are true,
then I don't know that I currently live "at home" as there are many days
when I dream of being other places that would fulfill these things for
me. Is it where we feel safe? Likely not, as my friends who teach in
inner city schools will tell you, they send kinds "home" to places that
aren't safe all the time.
Or maybe it is some combination
of all of these things. Maybe it is where I live, and where Mr. L is
and where I feel safe and where I belong and where my family is. Which
means that sometimes it's many places and sometimes only one and maybe
even nowhere at al. But this is all very abstract, you see.
For more concrete identification purposes, I've been cooking up a
new adage: Home is where the mart is. Shopping mart, that is. You see,
somehow, in a crazy way, I associate home not only with the place I live but
also with how I feel when I'm there. It's the place I feel comfortable,
stable, familiar, the place where I can drive to without thinking about
where I'm going. Home is the place that I am when I feel comfortable at
the supermarket, where I know just what aisle has the lemon soda that I
love and which one has my favorite cans of black beans. Maybe that's how
I know where my home is. Where is it for you?
*A regular occurrence.
**This very conundrum has led some service providers and homeless advocates to refer to their situation as "unhoused" meaning they lack permanent housing.
