I just wanted to start off by saying that I initially didn’t have the intention of making this post as intimate as it is, but as the weeks go on I find this cyber space easier to express myself on and to the likes of all you wonderful readers.
Home and houses do not really go hand and hand for me. I moved quite a bit growing up. The idea of home has always been the people I have been with and essentially, it is my two siblings and my mom. This past September was the first time I was away from my family for long duration. Growing up, we did not ever really travel outside the province; I think that for my immigrated mother the initial move was a solidified and meaningful enough experience. Growing up here with heavy Western influence, I had a very romantic idea of travel. Being an avid fantasy reader, I wanted to go on my “quest” – on my solo quest away from home to gain some soulful insight in regards to my presence in life. The opportunity to spend four months in Scotland as well as travel through Europe was something I never imagined myself doing. Very quickly, I had found myself needing to make a home in a new city, with a new culture, and brand new people. It did not turn out to be exactly as I would have imagined. It never did quiet feel like home, just a pass time but I had made it an experience for myself. It was not so much the experiences that formed but the ways in which I responded to them. I was suddenly doing many things I never would have imagined nor had the opportunity to do at “home”. I was playing Varsity rugby among burly Scottish women. I was stargazing and northern lights hunting in the Highlands. I was chasing lost buses in Florence. I was having Christmas dinner with a Dutch family in Holland. I was drowning myself and expanding my waistline with chocolates in Belgium. I met new family and was entrusted with an empty flat in London. I was dancing in the streets of Edinburgh with the city – ringing in the New Year with “Vikings and flames and parades all while I was away from home! I was doing all this and making so many memories BUT MY GOD how I missed home… I missed my mom because of the blubbering child I will always be.
My mother has an incredibly social and lively presence. She is overtly chatty and will never be lost for words. She has proven herself to being self-sacrificing and has built a financially stable and comfortable life for her three children in a new country, without ever mastering English or depending on anyone else. She has built her “empire” with a sewing machine and for the past two years with a small home business. Our house door is never locked, and does not never have strange women running around in it. My mom’s customers soon become her friends and those strange women always eventually find themselves in our living room having tea and chatting away. It’s a community of women – customers to friends, with hundreds of new faces coming through our doors weekly. I know some people would never openly invite people (my teenage brother hates it) into their house but this is how my home functions. It’s a hustle and bustle and laughter and frustration with my mom at the forefront . And all this was what I was missing.
When I was away, it was not as if I had a sudden realization about how much my family mattered to me because it was always obvious. I did however realize how much of my comfort and my ideas of home were consumed in the presence of my mother. I would make tea in the same fashion as her while I was away, sworn to never drinking it when I was home. I found myself expressing her accomplishments to my flatmates and to the family I met. I turned away from the ideas of marriage and told myself I would be content living with her and giving her company for the remainder of my life because she has sacrificed so much for us (don’t be concerned about a classmate potentially turning into a cat-women-living-with-her-mother type of situation, this is merely a phase). She may never have a Durant Mama style moment, but she truly should. Her presence is my home as corny as it sounds and I will always be grateful for it.
On the other end of the spectrum, while I was away, I suddenly had become content with my own company. I had done all my travels on my own and had spent countless hours, days, and weeks, in my own company and surprisingly never tired of it. I have always been introverted, but a willing to converse and painfully try new things type of introvert, so this too was not a surprising revelation. I am still not quite sure if home can be a feeling, or a satisfied attitude with the position of oneself in the world, but lately it feels that way. I do hope one day, to find myself content anywhere in the world with the knowledge of having support from my family and my never-ending dry and semi witty self commentary and to find myself feeling at ease and at home.
Works Cited
Barron, Tory. “‘The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story’ to Debut Saturday.” N.p., n.d. Web.
Iyer, Pico, and Eydís Einarsd́óttir. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.