List of Assumptions and Ideas about Home:

Home is a warm, safe and comforting place

A home has history, memories, and a sense of community

Home is friends and family

Home is love

Food, holidays, traditions

Home is a protected space

Home is not necessarily a tangible, physical space

“Home is where the Heart is”

Reading through our blogs, it is apparent that there are many shared assumptions and values we hold about home. Overall, home is seen as a positive thing. Whether it is a physical or mental space, it is a place that people turn to for comfort and strength. It represents family, friends, and loved ones. Home brings definition and fills in our outlines. The outside world may knock us about and threaten our sense of self, but home is always in our hearts to remind us of who we are.

Many blogs stated that home was not a physical location, but rather a non-physical place tied to memories and loved ones. The power of art to evoke human emotion was a common theme throughout the posts I read. Both Tillie and Chloë referenced specific poems and songs that connect them with home.

It was surprising to me how many people included memories of their grandparents in their posts. Karoliina wrote about memories of her Pappa and Mummi and cooking with them. Marissa included a memory of picking peas off the stalk in the garden with her nana. My grandmother was a central part of my post, and I was interested to see that other bloggers’ sense of home was driven by a similar connection.

Finally, I was struck by how our sense of home evolves as we age. As kids, our home is often contained to a physical house. As we grow and experience change and loss, our sense of home can expand and generalize. It becomes more than a physical space, it becomes a place inside of us that is carried everywhere we go.