Throughout reading my classmates’ blog posts about their sense of home and stories that made home what it is to them, I learned how many common assumptions and values we include in our definitions of “home”.

We all have different personal stories associated with our homes, but we also have so many shared perceptions of what home is. Most of these ideas could be expressed in three common themes:

• Home is people
• Home is memory
• Home is peace of mind

Home is people

All my peers’ blogs I refer to in this post agree that their sense of home inseparably lies in people. No matter where home is, as long as there are people there that we love, who love us and care about us. They are from our family, neighborhood or community; they are our friends, teachers, singers from your choirs, co-workers and many others, including “the regular customers that remember my name and tell me they miss me,” as noted by Chase.

Home is not just the place where we are; it’s people who make those places meaningful. People make our homes desirable to be there, and they open the doors for us to come in, as well as to go if we want to, this is why, as noticed by Wongelawit’s, home is “where I feel connected to the places and people outside of my house.”

Home is memory

We all have personal associations with our home. They have been accumulated over time and reserved a solid block in our minds. As soon as we sense familiar images, sounds, smells, we recall those memories and think of what we call home. One of such memories for Katarina is the CD with Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits, which she and her family always listened to on road trips. For Chase it can be “smelling my favourite dish being made for dinner.” For Georgia, this is “hearing the sound of waves lapping against a pebbled shore” and “seeing the silhouettes of skyscrapers against the pink-hued sky.”

These associations work in both directions. If we hear, read or tell the word ‘home’, we extract one or the other event or association from our memory, which, in turn, may encourage us to call our parents, friends, schoolmates, or buy a ticket to go and visit them, or cook that favorite dish from the childhood, or find and turn on the CD with Shania Twain’s Greatest Hits.

Home is peace of mind

Another common theme across many of the stories in the class is how we associate home with places where we are comfortable and in harmony with ourselves. For example, Sashini speaks “about being vulnerable, and being your true self” at home. Coco portrays her sense of home as “a feeling that makes you feel relaxed and comfortable… Home is where the heart is”. For Georgia, home is where “you allow yourself to sink into stillness.” My interpretation of all these expressions is about peace of mind, a particular emotional state when we feel comfortable, safe, relaxed, where we are happy because we can be indeed ourselves.

This assignment has been an eye-opening exercise for me. It’s amazing that we all, being from different parts of the world, have common attachments to what we call home. Not everything is matching in our understanding of home, however using different words and expressions, recalling diverse associations and stories, we naturally share main ideas about home, which places us to common ground.

Works Cited

Han, Coco. “Assignment 2:2-My sense of home.” Coco Han ENGL 372 Blog, Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020, Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/cocohanengl372/.

“Have we forgotten the meaning of home?” Centre Staged Inc. Home Staging & ReDesign. 15 Dec. 2016. Web image. Web. 31 Jan, 2020

Masaki, Georgia. “Assignment 2.1: Home”. Oh Canada. Web blog post. 27 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/georgiamasaki/2020/01/27/assignment-2-1-home/.

McAndrew, Frank T. “Home Is Where the Heart Is, but Where Is ‘Home’?” Web blog post. Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 03 Aug. 2015, Web. 31 Jan, 2020. www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/out-the-ooze/201508/home-is-where-the-heart-is-where-is-home.

Smith, Katarina. “Assignment 2:2: Home is a Beach.” Oh Canada. Learning & Reflections in ENGL 372: Canadian Studies. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/katarinasmithengl372/2020/01/28/assignment-22-home-is-a-beach/.

Thomson, Chase. “Assignment 2:2 – Home is More”. Chase Thomson’s ENGL 372 Blog. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/chasethomsonengl372/2020/01/28/assignment-22-home-is-more/ .

Weerasundara, Sashini. “Assignment 2:2 Home, oh my wonderful home.” Eng 372: Canadian Literature, Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan. 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/sashini/.

Zewde, Wongelawit. “Home Is Community.” Ooh Canada. Web blog post. 28 Jan. 2020. Web 30 Jan 2020. https://blogs.ubc.ca/english372wongelawit/2020/01/28/home-is-where-family-by-choice-are/.