I had a hard time trying to distill single lines into a list, because the way I related to these stories was through the writer’s elaboration. They way they built thoughts upon thoughts—intersecting ideas like a spider does silk, creating a web of memories—struck a chord with me.
“My home was within the pages of a good fantasy book, or the home I created with my sister in our doll and toy imagining. My imaginary world was a home of sorts. I cannot say I have ever had a sense of that in reality…
Despite this lack of homeyness I experienced growing up, the ocean was always a place that I go to feel ‘home’. From an early age, my grandparents cottage on a cliff overlooking Ganges Harbour on Salt Spring Island was my home… The sadness would be there always, but the water, with its renewing waves, had a cleansing effect. During the confusion and drama of adolescence, I ran to the beach five blocks from my house in Tsawwassen. I knew that the beach was a sign of something bigger than myself.”
— Hannah Vaartnou, .home is in your heart.
“To cope with my homesickness my dreams quickly became my home and acted as a temporary salvation. I dreamed about the pink house and my grandmother’s farm in Zimbabwe. I would wake up thinking I was back on the farm visiting the elephants, and in the canoe that we would take down the crocodile infested river. Over time with making new friends, the memories in my dreams slowly started to become part of the present… The same sense of adventurousness I felt canoeing down the river in Zimbabwe was replicated in the forests of Bowen Island were I would participate in thrilling games of hide and seek… I began to realize that I could have more than one home. After all, it is a fluid concept that can be recreated through nostalgia and collective memory. Places are always connected, because ‘there’ is what creates ‘here’.”
— Sarah Steer, “Wherever I go I carry ‘home’ on my back”
“My first home was in a friendly neighbourhood next to all of my childhood friends. It was a great home with a big backyard, a trampoline and friendly neighbours, but eventually we moved. This was frightening for me as a child; moving my entire life into an unfamiliar place with unexplored corners was absolutely devastating. Yet, like my mom explained to me, this new house would soon become my home and it would feel just as warm and welcoming as the house before. The backyard was smaller, but it was big enough to fit our trampoline.”
— Hailey Froehler, The Ambiguity of “Home”
I have a trampoline in my story too, except it was a friend’s not mine. I found it hard to articulate how special it was–in oral storytelling, you can just change your tone. I loved wrestling and spending my days there. A trampoline is a kind of a bouncy doormat that says ‘All Kids Welcome.’
For Hailey, her trampoline was something that helped the transition into her new home; some piece of memory that represented her resting place, at the same time as excitement and play. For me, my friend’s trampoline was something new–something that beckoned, “Hey, don’t you want to jump off the roof onto me?”–but now I feel at home whenever I see a trampoline.
The idea of home is more important than home in a way. “Home” is a way of organizing our memories. Someone can recreate memories to fit in their new homes, or use memorabilia to remind of their old homes. According to the Psychologist Gordon Bower, memories are organized into nodes–an activation of one node may set off a bunch of other nodes, like when one memory spurs another memory, or even when a smell evokes something from the past. That can be your mother’s cooking, the ocean, a canoe, or a trampoline. Nodes are organized into hierarchical trees, depending on how many associations one has. “Home” is always powerful–near the center of one’s life–it can mean so many things, and draw so many connections.
A web of memories.
As Sarah says: “Places are always connected, because ‘there’ is what creates ‘here.’
The ambiguity of home lies in the impossibility to fully define it. Is it “there,” or is it “here”? Is it a tangible place, or a feeling within you?
The thing I love about Chamberlin’s If This is your Land, Where are your Stories? is the close relationship he draws between home, stories, and dreaming. As he illustrates, the Odyssey is predicated on a ten year dream of “home,” and makes for an amazing story. In a way, the journey is more essential than the destination, and many First Nations long for home in the same way, weaving stories in remembrance. If you think about it, so many stories revolve around the same dream.
Hannah and Sarah both talk about using their imagination to inspire a sense of home. Yet, they used tangible things that informed their sense of belonging.
Both Salt Spring and Tsawwassen are very dear to me, and I felt like I’ve been cleansed in those beaches like Hannah. So, Sarah’s story naturally reminded me of canoeing there. When I was young I was very imaginative, and I’d imagine being Robin Hood in the woods, or being chased by serpents in the canoe. While Hannah used dolls, I used action figures. But personally, I preferred dressing up. Whether, I was Batman or James Bond, I wanted to meet my match–especially if he was evil. One Halloween I knocked on a door, and when it opened up I saw Captain Hook, who looked at my costume and said, “Finally!” I was Robin Hood, but it was close enough. I didn’t say “Trick or Treat,” I just drew my sword for a duel. However, I was oblivious. In my dreaming, I did not realize others antagonized me. Those things become apparent when you grow up; you just have to take the good with the bad. When I was 19, my grandma died of brain cancer in Salt Spring, and my grandpa died of lung cancer in Tsawwassen. But those places are still home.
Nonetheless, you must be allowed to dream.
A starved dream, that just makes me think of Tess of the D’Urbervilles –
“She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement, where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of glass. Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long ago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies ever came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement.”
Works Cited:
Bower, Gordon. “Orginizational Factors in Memory.” Cognitive Psychology 1 (1970): 18-46. Web. 08 Jun. 2015.
Froehler, Hailey. “The Ambiguity of Home.” English 470A- Oh Canada, Exploring Canadian Literature and Storytelling. Blogs.ubc, 05 Jun. 2015. Web. 08 Jun. 2015.
Hardy, Thomas. “Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891): Chapter LI.” Victorian London. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Jun. 2015.
Steer, Sarah. “Wherever I go, I carry “home” on my back.” English 470A | Canadian Studies. Blogs.ubc, 05 Jun. 2015. Web. 08 Jun. 2015.
Vaartnou, Hannah. “.home is in your heart.” Hannah and Canada. Blogs.ubc, o5 Jun. 2015. Web. 08 Jun. 2015.
🙂