Is This Home?

Looking out the window, at the changing leaves and pale, grey sky, I think to myself: what is home? A deep feeling, a sense flowing through my veins, responds. It is a feeling that I struggle to find words for and that allows me to imagine I’m grounded. Simultaneously, it is a sense of longing and loving; a sense of heartache and connection; a feeling of deep gratitude and of nearly finding tears.

I have lived in the same place for most of my life. The house and region I grew-up in is the same space that I reside in now.

Yet, it has never fully felt like home.

Perhaps it is because of the recent family changes that have left most of my family living in another town, and left the soul of this house empty—causing Belle’s verse “Is this home? / Is this what I must learn to believe in?” to run through my head when it is vacant of music (“Home Lyrics”). Or, perhaps it is because my home has never been within four walls; perhaps there is some other reason. Still, it leads me to wonder, if the house that I have lived in for years is not home, then what and where is it?

The first thing that comes to mind, beyond these feelings, is the forest. Specifically, the temperate rainforests that can be found along the west coast of North America. Sitting in the forest, wandering in the forest, feeling a sense of gratitude: this feels like home. I turn to the ocean and the connection it has to the people and vibrant ecosystem here. Digging my feet in the sand, watching the waves roll in and out with my breath, feeling the misty, salty air on my face, I believe I feel at home.

Yet, I then start to wonder if my conception of home in this sense is contributing to the displacement of others, to the myth of terra nulls, and to the ongoing colonialism that underlies much of society. I wonder if I can ever truly belong to a place that my ancestors didn’t belong to, and if my own stories contribute to the erasure of the story and home of others.

For some, language, culture, and sense of being is rooted in place, but I have not learned the language of this place or experienced these additional connections, and while I can try to learn more about this place and its people, I wonder if I have a “home,” or should have a home, in a place where I am an “uninvited visitor.” I return to looking out at the darkening sky and tattered-looking leaves, wondering and wandering.

I do know that home has never been a building, or a container with four walls.

My mind turns to art and music. Other times when I have felt the sense I associate with home have been while I’m making music: jamming with friends, tapping my feet in time, or singing out from the deepest parts of myself—my chest and entire being resonating with the music and the moment I’m a part of. I’ve also found that feeling of home when I’m drawing or working with clay. I love the feeling of mud, clay, in my hands, the shape it takes as I carve it, form it; I feel connected to the Earth and the place I am working. Besides, my art often brings together these different senses of home with familiar forests and aquatic life reflected in my work.

Home… home…

It is the feeling of family and close friends nearby. It is the connection to this place—watching the waves role in and out with my breath—and the recognition of the connections between the living beings here, and between this life and this place. It is recognizing how I fit into this picture.

In my earlier blog post, when I mentioned my initial experience with “home,” I was looking for an escape—an escape from an unfamiliar environment that a younger version of me didn’t understand. Yet, when I think about the concept of home now, it is a space that I also don’t fully understand; a space that I’m not entirely familiar with.

I stop to look back out the window—the sky is still grey, the leaves are still orange, brown—and I turn to look at the wall, where a quote my mom gave me is placed. Home is where your story begins, it tells me in cursive print.

Home has never been a building, or container with four walls, but it has been music, it has been the forest, it has been the ocean, my family, my art, my gratitude. It has been my community and the place that we are a part of. Home is adaptable and it is personal. It is a feeling and an idea, one that I am still navigating and figuring-out. Home is where I feel loved and feel loving. It is where I tell myself I belong, where the stories I tell leave a space for me in this world, where I have a connection to this place and the life here.

It is where the stories I make, the perspectives I share, originate from; home is the place where my story begins, and, like the rivers and oceans I feel so connected to, where it continues to flow from.

—

Works Cited

Armstrong, Jeanette. “Sharing One Skin.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, 2006, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/sharing-one-skin. Accessed on 22 Sept. 2016.

Darlene. Walking by the Sea. 2009, digital photograph.

“Home Lyrics.” Beauty and the Beast, LyricsMode, http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/b/beauty_and_the_beast/home.html. Accessed on 26 Sept. 2016.

Kaylie. “Stories of Home.” Creating Connections: Exploring the Impact of Stories on Identity, Place, and People, 17 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/kaylieandautumn2016/2016/09/17/stories-of-home/. Accessed on 27 Sept. 2016.

Kaylie. Forest Home. 2012, digital photograph.

https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/sharing-one-skin

MacDuffee, Misty. “BC’s Coastal Biodiversity: the Highest in North America.” Raincoast Conservation Foundation, 20 May 2011, http://www.raincoast.org/2011/05/bc-coastal-biodiversity/. Accessed on 27 Sept. 2016.

McAllister, Ian. “Mushrooms in British Columbia Rain Forest.” Photo Gallery: Temperate Rain Forests, National Geographic, http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/photos/rainforests-temperate/#/vancouver-toadstool_420_600x450.jpg. Accessed on 26 Sept. 2016.

“Rainforest in Canada! Where?” Pacific Rim National Park Reserve of Canada, Parks Canada, 8 Oct. 2009, http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/bc/pacificrim/natcul/natcul1.aspx. Accessed on 26 Sept. 2016.