The first story I read described the home as a place of experience yet, relaxation at the same time. Home to this person felt like they had everything they needed in this world. Many memories were made in their home, but then disease hit, and home became a “bunker” rather than a place of enjoyment. Home to them had changed a lot in recent times.
The second story didn’t describe home as a house that surrounded them but instead a special place where they felt connected with everything around them. They thought they indeed developed a relationship with the land that surrounded them and shared a mutual respect. Home to them was more about escaping the realities of life and getting their yearly “medicine” of entering their world of excitement and traditions.
The third story describes home as a comforting place that is built through memories. This story tells their first time moving out of their only childhood home, but they lose comfort in their new home. Although, it doesn’t feel like home until they unpack those boxes and set the scene; otherwise, the home can remain “boxed up.”
The fourth story describes their sense of home being developed through a tale of building everything from the ground up. However, they acknowledge that how we view home may not be the same perspective someone else has about that home. I think what they are trying to suggest is that spaces and places have different meanings to people; they just depend on how we interpret it.
The fifth story focuses more on how they have acquired so much knowledge of the area they lived in over the years. Home is more about the expertise and relationships they have formed with the land and people. This person’s story focuses on how their family interactions, regardless of location, are when they feel truly at home.
The sixth story describes the home as a place of “freedom” and giving them the ability to learn and try new things without repercussions of failure. The home was also freedom because they felt it was a place full of memory that they could escape to when other issues emerged in their lives. The home wasn’t always an exact location but was more of a mental value, they never had an actual residing land they call home, but the good memories they had growing up is what family is to them.
Commentary
Reading all these stories was very interesting, and I found that many of them shared a lot of the same values that I have when it comes to “home,” but some shared different values than me. I found that the fourth and fifth story was very similar to what I can think of when I reminisce my “home.” For example, these stories tend to value how their sense of home came through history and the hard work put in so they could call it “home.” It was also very similar because I find I do have a connection to the land where I called home, but in reality, it is more about the people I am with where I will feel like I am at home. I also shared different values of “home,” though when reading stories, some reports seem to see their home now as a place of safety from dangers rather than being a place of memories and enjoyment. I can understand why they feel like this because the home has become our entire world in which we need to escape it once in a while. It’s now a place where we do have to bring our work home and are forced to deal with the daily stresses of life in an area that we used to value for its comfort.
– KO