“Home” means something a little different to everyone. After reading everyone’s posts on the topic, I am only more convinced of this truism. There are a few topics which jumped out at me as being particularly important or central to the stories shared, particularly:

  • Nature
  • Space
  • Connection
  • Relationships
  • Memories
  • Security

Not every story included a focus on all of these subjects. As well, many of my classmates took these topics in different directions. In the below discussion, I only reference 6 of my classmates’ posts: Joseph, Zac, Laura, Kyle, Holly, and Lenaya’s. It was super interesting to read everyone’s posts and hear their unique stories of home!

Nature figured prominently in many of these entries. In my post, I wrote about how my idea of home is deeply connected to the ocean, or, the wider natural environment where I grew up. Lenaya and Laura both described having a sense of mutual knowledge and recognition with the land, and with nature, that informs their view of home. On the flip-side, environmental destruction or degradation can complicate our relationship with home, as Joseph writes in his entry. There are many times when humans are at odds with nature, and these conflicts can be as pivotal to “home” as the positive experiences are. There are many different definitions of “home”; in the context of these entries, I might forward a definition such as: ‘home is having a relationship with the natural environment(s) around you.’

Space is another broad concept that came up a lot. This is pretty unsurprising, as “space,” place, and location–from the layout of your house, to the country you are born in–are deeply intertwined with how people usually think about “home.” Space was important, I think, in the story I shared–the story itself being about settling land and building homes, and the story’s function being to explain the timeline of a space. Zac spoke about suburbia and navigating city environments, on foot, by bike, or in a car in his post. Spacial awareness and ease of movement are part of feeling at home, to Zact–and, as someone with a terrible sense of direction, I totally relate! I only ever go “mapless” when I’m in my hometown. Kyle’s post discussed his memories of working on and renovating his family’s property, and how these projects influenced the values he learned. 

Connection, or a sense of belonging, is also an important factor when discussing home. In my post, I talked about how I felt connected to my home because I knew a story about it, but that this sense of connection became troubled when I grew older and started to question the truth of this story. In Joseph’s post, he wrote about how “home” is more about relationships than it is about a specific region or property. Lenaya spoke about belonging in her post in reference to a relationship with the land that can be cultivated and grow stronger over time. Words such as “safety” and “comfort” were also used to describe home in many of our posts, and I think bonds are an especially crucial way to ensure that sense of security. Belonging and security aren’t guaranteed; Laura brings up many of the ways in which belonging is complicated, difficult, and at times impossible in her post. Holly’s post also questions this idea of “belonging” when it is possible to have multiple, competing, and evolving relationships with the places and people we call “home.”