…pick me up and turn me ’round.
Where is home?
Is it the house you grew up in? The house you shared with your parents and siblings and where so many beloved memories rest?
Is home the apartment you share with your partner? Your dog? Your friend? The place where you come home to after work, cook yourself a meal and stumble back to after a night out?
Or is home the place you created with your own spouse and children? The place you put so much time, money and energy into being safe, comfortable and loving.
Can you have multiple homes? Like the saying says, can home be wherever you want it to be?
I ask myself this question every time I fly back to Central New York, where I grew up, and every time I fly back to Austin, where I currently live.
And I can never find the answer.
fresh eggs from my child-hood friend Dan, the urban farmer
outside Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, NY
Eat your veggies!
Mom and Geoff at Watkin’s Glen, NY
Our first trip together to where I grew up!
Remnants of my childhood
Mom, Mexico, 1974
Grandma & Grandpa’s wedding day
Grandma’s living room: no touching, sitting or standing
Grandpa’s grave, Memorial Day
Forget-me-nots for you!
Lucy getting her morning yoga on
11 Comments
Home is a fluidity to it. At least for me. When I left New York for Canada, I never expected to make Canada my “home home”, but as the years passed, I realized I would refer to Canada as “home”. It crept up on me. Seemingly one day the Canadian flag looked more familiar. That being said, I wish I could transplant my family here. There is a major truth to home being where the heart is. I just can’t figure out if the cliche is a physical one or an emotional one…
Canada is a good place to call home. I wanted it to be my home for a long time!
Girl, I hear ya. When I say home I mean my house here in Austin and now I find myself correcting myself when I say home and I’m really talking about my parents house in Maryland. It is isn’t actually the house I grew up so that has really helped with the emotional separation. But it is tough!
My mom still lives in the house SHE grew up in! Thinking of losing that house bugged me for a long time. Now I want my mom to move somewhere fun and refreshing and new! I’d still miss that house if she moved though.
I guess is as simple as Charles Manson said, and Devendra Banhart covered. “Your home is where you’re happy” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9ayPMdgoY
Or maybe one of its ramifications. Alex Ebbert’s “home is wherever im with you” but still im going for the first one. Take it from an Uruguayan living in Ireland that even thou is far away from “home” i cant help but call “home” to the apartment im living in now. (i love it, my roomates and my life here, so… it’s home now)
Lovely blog, im a follower from now on! Cheers
Hi, Pablo! Wow! What travels you’ve had! How is Ireland? I hear it’s beautiful!
This is an interesting topic for me. I grew up in the same town, same house for 15 years (age 3 to 18), but nothing about that place seems like home to me. I left upon hs graduation & my mom & brother left a couple years later.
College Station seems a lot like home for my husband & me even though neither of us have a physical house we can point to there & say, “that’s home.” We both spent 4+ years there, some of the happiest of our lives.
Now he’s in the Army & we move every 3 years. The concept of home has become one of people, not location. My home is where my husband & my daughter are. If we’re in Arizona for 6 months, then that’s my home. If we’re in Hawaii for 3 years, then that’s it.
I’ll always be a Texan, we’ve adopted San Antonio as our hometown but home is where my people are.
Tara, such an interesting perspective. I can only imagine that home takes on many meanings for families in service. P.S. where has been your favorite place to live?
I hate to sound cliche, but you and Geoff are adorable. So. Stinking. Adorable.
Anyway. I don’t really feel at home when I go back to Dallas. Maybe because I’ve lived here for almost 16 years. Sometimes I feel a weird nostalgia when I drive around certain areas. But I’m always glad to cross back into the Austin city limits.
😀
Austin is a good place to call home! P.S. I’m going up to Dallas this weekend!
I have major problems with sense of belonging and home since I’ve moved a few times throughout my life, its frustrating when people ask where are you from and you don’t know what to answer. I hope that one day I’ll figure it out, and I too like to believe that there are many places that could feel like home. It was really reassuring to read that I’m not the only one that is like this, and hopefully we’ll all find our paths. 🙂