Home

 "A man travels the world over  in search of what he needs and returns home to find it" George Moore

My great-grandmother's home is preserved in a historical settlement a forty-minute drive from my house. Stripped back to fit into a 19th-century village, it was dragged across the icy Wolastoq River when the settlement was created almost sixty years ago.  I have stepped inside this home many times over the years, seen the stairs where my father sat as a small child, the room my parents slept in as newlyweds when they went to visit.  I can remember being in this house with tourists when a woman spoke up to say she was an energy healer and could feel the energy of the family that had lived here.   I always remember wondering why my great-grandmother wanted her home to be part of this settlement.  I suppose we all would like our legacy to live on and maybe this was her way of ensuring this.  Her home was obviously important to her and part of her identity.  I have used house and home interchangeably here, but when I think about my great grandmother and her house.  I wonder if she truly found a home here?

A home is defined as where one lives permanently, especially as a family member. For other species, it is a place they instinctively return to.  On the other hand, a house is a building for human habitation usually with other family members.  

I think of how distinctly different these two entities are by definition and how much we confuse them as a society.  I think of the indigenous people and how their home was often changing by way of where they were getting their food or creating shelter from the elements.   I think of the newcomers and refugees who find themselves displaced and moving to new regions out of necessity. Whether to survive, find safety,  peace, or new hope.  Then there are all of the people that have endured weather disasters since the beginning of time and had their houses destroyed. We even have a name that stigmatizes people who do not have permanent shelter in our communities, the homeless, as though not having shelter is significant enough to define who someone is.  All of the ways that both a house and even a home by definition, can be unstable, everchanging, and nonexistent for some,  it is clear that home encompasses so much more. 

Home can be one of the most comforting words in the English language. Without a sense of home, there is a feeling of fragmentation, as those who have experienced this can attest to. Even the idea of home can bring about many impassioned emotions.   When I think of home I think of refuge or sanctuary. If I imagine a place I feel at home in I would not think of the physical space or structure but a sanctuary created by my books,  plants, and paintings that adorn the space and reflect back feelings of comfort and identity. The refuge comes from being surrounded by my people and animals as they create the unconditional love and space that allows me to feel truly at home in their presence.  We have all heard the familiar phrases, home is where the heart is, home is the person or place you return to again and again, but the home that remains the most attainable for us is the home we  carry with us on the  inside 

I think we spend a lot of our lives searching for our home.  We may travel throughout the world looking for a place that feels like home to us or to find the place that makes where we are returning feel more like home.  We may attach ourselves to people that feel like home. This may be why we often lose a sense of home when someone we love dies.   We miss them so because they meant home to us maybe even before we could find home for ourselves.  

I have lived now for twenty-seven years in the same house and most of those years with the same three people and pets but finding my home continues to be a ritual I  return to every day that I live here.  Most of the time now, I find my home on my yoga mat, my meditation cushion, in prayer, outside in stillness as I watch the sunrise. All of these things allow me to settle or land in my body. This is where I don't have to search for comfort, safety, love, or acceptance.  This is my true home.  Like the hummingbird returning in the first week of May or the Salmon finding their way upstream to return to their home, we have to keep coming back to this place inside ourselves. It is in this space that we find freedom even when we are confined, peace during war and upheaval, and self love in times of self-depreciation 

Our great grandmothers, grandmothers, or mothers may not have known the privilege of seeking refuge or finding sanctuary within themselves or being surrounded by their loved ones but maybe they have found home within us. With each barrier we cross, each burden we release, every regret we unleash, every privilege we acquire, and every person we help to own their bodies, their hearts, and their minds so these places can become home.  Perhaps,  we all find new ways to be in the home we are given, that we carry wherever we are.