For this week’s post, I am reflecting on some of the beautiful stories about home that my classmates wrote this week. While I did not get the chance to read every post thoroughly, I was struck by the impact that the concept of home seemed to have on many of us and on our memories—and by the number of similarities between the experiences or feelings relating to home that many of us seem to have. In fact, while everyone’s experiences and stories were different, I found it hard to find values and stories that did not have at least one other post reflecting similar perspectives. While it doesn’t contain every commonality I observed, the following list summarizes some of the major similarities I found in the values, assumptions, and stories I read this week. These similarities include that home:
- is connected to people (including pets). Many posts mentioned that home is connected to family, friends, pets, and/or significant others and that these relationships were more important than the actual location of one’s home.
- is adaptable. While not always explicitly stating this, multiple posts reflected that home has changed throughout the years, depending on a number of things, such as one’s sense of connection to the place and people one is around.
- is complicated. A number of posts talked about home being complicated, or not making sense. Some reflections suggested that this has changed throughout the times and places the blogger reflected on; overall numerous posts seemed to indicate that defining the concept of home and finding a home is complicated.
- may be connected to a place, but isn’t merely one space. A number of posts also implied that, while home is often assumed to be a place, it is often not specific to a location. Some blog authors suggested that home can relate to the sense of one’s surroundings and things that one is connected to (such as the forest or the sound of rain) and that this sense isn’t directly tied to any one place; while it can be connected to places such as the ocean, it isn’t a specific place so much as a sense found in the presence of such an entity.
- is a feeling and is where one feels a sense of safety, comfort, and belonging. Many posts reflected that home was a feeling more than a physical location, and, in broad terms, this feeling was also associated with a sense of safety—whether this be a sense of stability, connection, belonging, or comfort.
- is sometimes not present in one’s life. While the focus of the previous blog prompt was to discuss home, the sense of a lack of home also came-up for me while reading others’ reflections. Chamberlin suggests that “[h]omelessness is also a condition of mind and spirit” (84), and this sense of “homelessness” seemed to be reflected in some of my classmates posts as they reflected on times when they have felt at home and times when they felt that this connection was lacking (whether in the past or in the present), even if they physically had a place to live in.
I also found that, while there were many common ideas about home, every blog didn’t mention all of the similarities listed above and, in some cases, a couple of blogs would share something in common that would be different from many others. For example, a number of my classmates mentioned how home was connected to independence and making home your own. However, while this idea was common among some people, it wasn’t reflected in all the blogs I read, and wasn’t consciously reflected in my own reflections on home.
Beyond this, some blogs prompted me to think of elements of home that I had not considered before, such as the importance of language in connecting one to people and place. As someone who is fluent in the language I’m commonly surrounded by and who has lived in the same region for the majority of their life, I hadn’t consciously thought of this facet of home, although it seems important in feeling a sense of safety and connection. I also didn’t find another mention of creating art or music in the other posts I read regarding home, which I found interesting as it was one of the first things that came to mind for me as something that connects me to a sense of home.
In addition to these thoughts, I found myself reflecting on the pieces that construct this sense of home for me and my classmates. Home seems to imply a physical place, yet for most of us, it has more facets to it than a physical meaning, and it sometimes doesn’t indicate a specific place at all. This caused me to wonder if home is constructed by different elements, such as physical places, interpersonal connections, the language and culture we feel a part of, a feeling of belonging, comfort, safety. In this way, home seems to have a lot to do with a sense of connection to these things, and yet it seems to be something different than a sense of connection. All of the posts I read told some form of story, and one even explicitly acknowledged that “home is in my story” (HannahWagner), in addition to the ones suggesting that home is related to stories we tell ourselves. Perhaps these different, yet similar senses of home can be best summarized by saying “there are many ways to build a home” (StephanieLines). In this way, home is like the different structures that create the places where we live, or, perhaps more applicably, create the stories we tell: possibly made of similar elements, yet constructed in different ways, in different proportions, at different times, and with different voices.
I feel a deep gratitude to everyone who shared their stories and reflections regarding home through this process. In particular, I send thanks to stephanie, Hope, Hannah, Madelaine, Chloë, Patrick, Francisco, Colleen, and Mikayla for the thought-provoking and insightful reflections that inspired this post.
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Works Cited
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Vintage Canada Ed., Vintage Canada, 2004.
Chloë Parkin. “2:2 – My Home.” Chloë’s Blog – English 470: Canadian Stories, 28 Sept. 2016. https://blogs.ubc.ca/chloeparkin/2016/09/28/22-my-home/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
ColleenFish. “What home is….for me. – Assignment 2.2.” Colleen Fish: ENGL 470 – Canadian Studies, 30 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/colleenfish/2016/09/30/what-home-is-for-me-assignment-2-2/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
franeta94. “Assignment 2.2, Alienated at Home, at Ease Overseas.” Telling Stories of My Own: A Blog by Francisco Araneta, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/franciscoaraneta/2016/09/28/assignment-22-alienated-at-home-at-ease-overseas/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
HannahWagner. “Assignment 2.2 — From House to Home.” A Look at Canada: Exploring Canadian Literature, Stories and Identity, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/hwagner/2016/09/28/assignment-2-2-from-house-to-home/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
HOPEPRINCE. “Lesson 2:1 – Assignment 2:2.” Hope Prince ENGL 470 — Canadian Studies Blog, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/hopeprinceengl470a/2016/09/28/lesson-21-assignment-22/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
Kaylie. “Is This Home?” Creating Connections: Exploring the Impact of Stories on Identity, Place, and People, 27 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/kaylieandautumn2016/2016/09/27/is-this-home/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
Kaylie. Three Trees. 2015, Clay.
MadelaineWalker. “One Great City!” Canadian Studies: Reading (and Writing) Canadian Stories, 26 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/walkermad470/2016/09/26/one-great-city/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
mikauber. “Assignment 2.2 – A Sense Of Home.” ENGL 470: CanLit Chronicles: Literature, with a Side of Maple Syrup, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/mikaylauber/2016/09/28/assignment-2-2-a-sense-of-home/. Accessed on 3 Oct. 2016.
Patrick Woo. “Canada Is My Home And Not–Assignment 2:2.” We are in the Same Boat: Discovering the Homeland of Canadian Literary Genres in its Historical Context, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/patrickwoo/2016/09/28/canada-is-my-home-and-not-assignment-22/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.
StephanieLines. “homeless to the second degree.” missing canada: a response to canadian literary genres, 28 Sept. 2016, https://blogs.ubc.ca/missingcanada/2016/09/28/homeless-to-the-second-degree/. Accessed on 2 Oct. 2016.