Last week I did not write a blog post. This was in part due to the fact that I drove north to Vermont for a visit and was caught up in being home again. And it was in part because I felt stuck on what I was writing about. I had wanted to write about being home, and ideas/themes around home. How for me, home is s.v. Phoenix, but home is also Vermont – and those two are currently very far apart.
Where I feel stuck is with the fact that home can be a very complicated thing, a thing that has so many different meanings from so many different narratives. Each person’s lived experience deeply influences their notion of “home”. Of course, everything I write comes from a place of my own lived experience. So this post will be a reflection on my own feelings and thoughts surrounding home. But I want to preface my perspective with a few thoughts.
First, along with many, my heart is so heavy for folks who have been forced to flee their homes, most recently with the masses in Ukraine. I cannot imagine the heartbreak that has been forced into their lives. My heart also goes out to so many people for whom the idea of home is not implicit with safety and love, though I do hope that if it is not then it will someday be.
With that, I want to think of the different ways that I understand home. When googling “home” I get definitions like “the place where one lives permanently” and “relating to the place where one lives”. Most of the definitions are relating to either place or space.
In anticipation for this trip north, I’ve found myself repeatedly saying that I’m “going home” for a visit. Vermont has very much become home in the past few years. But at the same time, my boat Phoenix is also so much my home. So in this way, two of the central aspects of home – place and space- for me are currently quite far away from each other. And perhaps this is part of why adventuring by boat is so appealing to me, because I can have home in more places than one.
If we can have home in numerous ways by temporary separation of space and place – what other ways can we experience home? Maybe in a community, a group of people that feel like your tribe. It may be just one person, a person that makes you feel safe and seen. Or perhaps you can feel at home in a state of mind, a place you take yourself mentally when you need comfort.
Giving myself this extended array of definitions makes me feel better when I think of homesickness. It brings me comfort to think that the feeling of home can come from so many areas of life, and that they can be constantly changing. Over time life will morph and shift, and when you may not always be able to exist in your place or in your space, you will always have other ways of forming home.
Moving always gives me a new perspective on home. It has helped me to more fully understand the importance of having feelings of ease and comfort in your life. The value in feelings of belonging. And with that, I want to leave you with a question. What aspects of your life currently make you feel at home? Get curious, get specific, and perhaps the answer will bring you a wonderful sense of gratitude.
This post sparked for me to think of home as a broad range of possibilities from my tangible physical shelter to my existential sense of belonging and alignment. While I call Vermont home, I also have the good fortune to spend extended periods of time in NYC and I’m able to feel at home there as well. My concept of home seems to dance with a sense of risk and uncertainty. I’m grateful to live in a physical home where I feel safe – both physically and psychologically. I’m also reminded of how we often speak of whether a person is at home in the mountains or on the sea – a sense of fit. This simple word carries a lot more energy and meaning than might initially catch my attention.
Thanks for the provocative post.
For me home is the place where I’m always happy and grateful to go back to, no matter where on this planet I/we have recently been.