notions of home

There will be days when home feels like the eye of the storm or the belly of a hurricane. There will be days when home smells like fresh baked cookies or fried eggs and toast. There will be days when all you want to do is runaway. There will be days when all you want to do is stay. On other occasions, the days in between, home is the smell of freshly washed hair, chapped lips, and cozy toes. Home is knowing that wherever you run to or wherever you chose to stay, it is not about place, but person. Your person. You.

You are your own home.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about notions of home lately, considering the upheaval that has been 2020 for me. This year started off with a bang. And by bang I mean bugs. And by bugs I mean bed bugs. Frustrating was one word to describe it. I was sent off to stay between my friends’ and partner’s home while my actual home was being fumigated. Long story short, I never went back to that home. But truthfully, I can recall a time when that house did feel like a home, before small and tiny little creatures decided to make our bedrooms their temporary home and I experienced for the first time the wrath of an unforgiving student house landlord. Another first for me was a moment of realization in recognizing that home really isn’t a place, but the people that you surround yourself with, and how comfortable and content you feel in those people’s presence.

Everyone will have their own story to tell of their experience during the first moments of when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit Canada. I came home to my parents house in March and didn’t leave until August. Home for this period of time was where my family was. Being across the hall from my two sisters for one of the last times in all of our lives was an experience that I will never forget and cherish forever.

The past two months for me have been a rediscovering of notions of what home truly means to me. What I’ve realized is that home is not a brick and mortar building in which the walls hold your photos and the stairs creek with murmurs and whispers of past memories and stories. Home is you. Home is me. Home is all of us, choosing to live our lives out loud and brave the wildness and uncertainty of life with grace, courage, and vulnerability. Home is surrounding yourself with people who make your heart soar and sing until the days end. As someone who is a place-based person, and always has been, and maybe always will be, I am rediscovering ways to find place within the lines on my hands, the scars on my body, the curls in my hair, and the soil in between my toes. I am finding ways to make home my very own sanctuary within the voices and thoughts running through my bones.

Home is about place. Home is about people. Home is whatever definition you want it to be.

Home to me, is where I am happy, confident, content, comfortable, brave, vulnerable, and kind. Home is my own.

Home is my own.

All for now,

All my love,

Onward.

-m