All of our uses of home implied a permanence of place. For the majority of us, home is a space that we feel a connection to; to go back to. And this exists on different scales. A town may be your home if you have had multiple residences within it. A house may be your home- temporarily or the permanent one you grew up in. A lot of our definitions involved a past established relationship with a space and our identities are tied to it.
The articles in class, however, elaborated more on how home changes in time. For the homeless youth in London, establishing independence and temporary housing was a step on the way to establishing a more permanent house and therefore creating a future home. For the people of settlements in Columbia, "home-making" is a continual process of improvement.
For us students, we are just beginning to really define ourselves; attempting to find a 'place' in the world. For us, home can take on many meaning, but I think one that has been salient is the recognition that it can change across time and has multiply constituted meanings.
A song entitled "Home," by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, was released last year. The song is about two people who love each other and have had experiences which have defined their history together to shape what they call "home." Their chorus says:
"Home. Let me come home. Home is wherever I'm with you. Ah, home. Yes, I am home. Home is when I'm alone with you."
For this band, home is embodied not in a house, but in a person. Its definition rests solely on the social relationship built on personal connection, comfort, and love. I think this definition is at the heart of what home is for many people. Our social relations help shape our identities, and whether we chose to embody home in a house or a person, we are expressing what we find comforting and close to us.
So what do you think? Do we need a space to call our home, or does it make more sense for us to define it personally as our locations are more frequently changing? Do we need another person to have a home? How can we even study the home geographically if its definition doesn't involve a physical space?
What a great post, Taylor!
ReplyDeleteSince I missed Tuesday, let me thank you first for summarizing the discussion!
The idea of home is one I feel very strongly about. I've spent a LOT of time thinking about what exactly it means.
The question you end with is as important a question as you are likely to get asked in your life.
In 2000 at the age of 24 I left my home in Mississippi for the second step in my career as a news videographer. My dad rode to Albuquerque, NM, with my dog and me. When I dropped him off at the airport a few weeks later, his voice cracked and tears were in his eyes.
After that, it was just my dog at me. My dog was a Siberian Husky I had gotten when I first started college. Huskies are build for strength (for sled pulling) and companionship (for those long winter nights). His personality meshed perfectly with mine. He became my anchor while I pursued a profession it would turn out that I hated.
Three years later, my dad and brother rode to New Mexico to help move my dog and me to my next job in North Carolina. A little more than a year after that, dad came and helped us move to Delaware where I lived while I worked in Pennsylvania.
These places were all homes for me in different ways whether I lived alone or with roommates or neighbors...until July 2006.
My dog was about to turn 11. Since I had been in Delaware, a vet removed a tumor from his back above his right leg. Unfortunately it was just a little more than a year later and it was back with a vengence.
Not knowing what else to do and not being able to care for him with the demands of working in TV news, I took him to my parents when I visited for the 4th of July holiday. When I came home, he stayed with my parents. He had a vet appointment there, surgery was tried, but the day after I went back to work, he died.
I was pretty upset. This dog had been with me through a lot. As I moved around, he was something to come home to. After a stressful day, going for a walk helped me relax.
Suddenly all the positive benefits I got from being a dog owner were gone. It was worst at the beginning, as you can imagine. When I got up, I expected to see him in his usual spots around the apartment. I thought I saw him out the corner of my eye in the apartment a couple of times. It's no wonder some people believe in ghosts.
I moved out of that apartment a short time later. I actually moved completely across the country to Los Angeles. I applied and was accepted to the Peace Corps and spent a little over two years in Ukraine.
I returned to the USA to my parents house...to my old room...it still had all my childhood posters up on the walls. It did not feel comforting or reassuring to be back in that place.
I had left a girlfriend behind in Ukraine. The next summer (last summer) I went back to Ukraine to work on an oral history project and to visit my girlfriend. Upon seeing her and being with her, my definition of home crystalized.
I think that definition changes as we age and progress through our lives. Since I moved away from my parent's house in 2000, my home was with my dog because he was there as my trusty companion. When he died, I was homeless and adrift somewhat literally. I went from one coast to the other, then 5,000 miles east.
Home is now something I aspire to have again with my girlfriend. That is to say, home for me is a place with *my* family. There are elements of home in other places, but in my heart, I know my parent's house isn't my home, nor is my brother's where my nephews eagerly await every visit I make. Aspects exist in those places, but home is a place where I can be with my girlfriend.
If I get married, if I have kids, that definition might change again. Some elements of "home" exist in Ukraine with my host family there.
I tell my girlfriend that this is our life and we define it. I encourage everyone to define "home" for themselves and not let others confine them in a construct like a house.
Taylor’s post reminds me of something my mom is always telling me, “It’s not where you are, but who you’re with that really matters.” These words especially touched me when I left home for the first time to go to school and those first few weeks were particularly rough without my family and close friends. It really is the people that make a space a place and if you have a home without people you love, well it’s just not really a home, but a house without meaning.
ReplyDeleteAfter I left home to go to Ohio State I attempted to re-create home in a teeny dorm room with a roommate. It was definitely not the same but it didn’t take long for me to start referring to Columbus as home. After a few months I shocked myself: while I was at my parent’s house for the weekend I said something along the lines of “Well it’s time for me to go back home.” At any rate, being away from my “original” home in Centerville taught me the meaning of home and that it is possible for me to have many homes in a lifetime- makes life all the more interesting! I did the same thing when I studied abroad in Mexico. I kept referring to my host family’s house as home and I was even told to call my host mother “máma”!
Anyways, I think home is a combination of the people you care about and physical space and considering I have never gone without a roof over my head, it is natural for me to tie meaning with where I am living at the moment (even if it is temporary). I think talking about homelessness definitely makes you value home more as a feeling than a physical structure. Nevertheless, it is still important to study the home as a geographical space because our identities and values of home are expressed whatever physical space we call “home” (it could be a house, apartment, street corner, shelter, park, really anywhere you attach your definition of home to a space). While not everyone may live in your standard house, everyone is living somewhere and I think it is only natural for people to have their version of home that ties together the physical and emotional.
I love the fact that you tied a song into your post Taylor. There is nothing I love more than music expressing life. I have always tied the idea of a home to family. Ever since my parents divorced when I was eight I never felt like I really had a family or a home. Even when my parents were married we moved around a lot. I went to 4 different elementary schools before 5th grade. I finally had a sense of home when my mom and I moved to Mentor,OH. It was our place that we made our own together. I graduated from high school there and all of my friends are still there. Friends and my mom is what really define a home for me. Especially at this time in my life.
ReplyDeleteMy world was really shaken up when my mom decided to move again while I was a freshman in college. She picked a small apartment not in what I had started referring to as my hometown. I was so angry. I had lost everything that was a home to me. She made this new place her own and I felt like I was in a museum when I came home for the summer. Home started meaning more to me than just people. It really was the surroundings that had formed around.
Over the last 4 years I have been in athens I have lived in the same apartment for three of them. This place with my friends and my boyfriend really became my home. It's not even just my apartment it's all of campus. Sometimes I even think of the library as my home. I now sit here in the library writing this and realize that my definition of what my home is to me has really changed. Home to me is Athens. It's my friend houses, it's the bar floors that my feet stick to, it's the fact that above all I had finally found a place with a family that I love.
Home like in most articles we read is a fluid place that changes over time. It's excepting this fluidity that makes you except home. I also think you need another person to define a home. At least in my experiences.
This post was really interesting and really made me think a lot of my definition of home. To me, home has always been mom and dads house. ive lived many different places, but it never felt the same and i never had the same attachments as i did at my parents. i spent my entire life until i was 18 there. so my definition of home has always been that place.
ReplyDeleteafter reading brians reply, i felt really inspired and started contemplating why my parents house has always been home to me. just as brian relied on his dog for balance and security, i realized that i rely on my all the familiarities and comforts of the place more than the place itself. i think if my parents and sister weren't here, it wouldn't feel like home at all. this place feels like home because no matter what kind of day im having, i know i can go to my parents and be greeted with hugs and warmth. if im feeling down or lonely, i can go to my parents for encouragement and conversation. ive met and known a lot of people, but my family has been there through thick and thin, so ive come to rely on them for much of my emotional comfort. its not the roof that makes this place feel like home, i can find a roof almost anywhere to sleep under. its not the bed or the rooms or the material possessions; its the bonds with the people that draw me to that place when i need assurance or comfort.
this isnt to say that home has to be where your family is. many people do not have good home lives, so home may mean something completely different to them. i think a home is where you find comfort and security. material possessions often cannot provide you with these things, so home becomes a place where you have people that can provide this.
It is a great post and make think about my hometown Beijing, China. It is far away, but really close. Whenever I feel lonely and uncomfortable here, I always think about everything in my hometown and to count how many days I could go back to there. When the time close to summer or winter break, I am always so excited because it is time to go home.
ReplyDeleteI think for me, home is not only a born place, but also a meaningful space with a lot of valuable memory, such as family, friends, food, the place you always go, and the familiar feeling. There is nothing can instead. Wherever people go, they all know where is their hometown.
I want to do master and PHD in America as well, and then teach diversity culture class here. The one reason I want to be a teacher is because I can have long summer and winter break, which I can go home - my place. Whenever I go back to my hometown, I feel peace, safety and familiar. I think no matter how good is my English, how good position I earn here, and no matter how long I stay, I always feel I am a foreigner, and outsider. The culture is too much different and I will never consider other place except Beijing, China to be my home(town).