What is Home?
December 2022
What is home? It’s a trickier question to answer than you’d think.
Most would name a place – their current apartment, the house they grew up in. The city where they came of age. My nomadic friends tell me that home is where their family lives – regardless of any relation that current location may have to their past. For many years now, my answer to this question has been ‘the place where your phone charger is always plugged in to the wall’
But ‘home’ as a concept is deceptively complex, one that evolves based on the context and the timing in which it is referenced. Ask me when I’m in Bali, and I’ll tell you that home is California. Ask me when I’m in California, and I’ll tell you “Cupertino”. Ask me in Cupertino, and I’ll be more specific….so on and so forth. This simple example reveals that one’s conception of “home” often grows and shrinks based on one’s distance from it.
For many, home exists as a series of concentric circles. Few feelings make me feel as warm as the border agent handing me my passport and telling me “Welcome Home”. This is true whether I fly into Houston or Atlanta or Minneapolis or San Francisco. My country is home, as is my state, my county, my city, my street.
These circles need not overlap, for one can also have multiple homes. Or, rather, multiple places can trigger the emotions and feelings associated with ‘home’. If you own multiple houses, you can probably relate to this feeling. For those less privileged, think of the last time you’ve lived away from your parents or family. Your primary residence probably feels like home when you’re there. But then it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas, and you head to the airport to board a flight to see your family, and you tell people you’re heading…‘home’ for the holidays.
What makes a place feel like home? Is it the amount of time you’ve spent there? The people you’ve met, the memories you’ve created? How much you’ve grown as a person? Your familiarity with the surroundings? Every person will have a different answer. One can spend years in a place and still not feel ‘at home’, while another can live somewhere for a month and create an almost lifelong association with it.
Some people have no home. The unhoused or the homeless obviously come to mind, as those who do not possess shelter. But what about refugees or asylum seekers? Think of the Rohingya or the Kurds, of the 12 million-odd stateless people in the world. They may have a roof or a tent over their heads, even own property – but they have no ‘homeland’, no place in the world to call home.
Home need not even be a place! While it’s true that places most often conjure up the emotions associated with “home”, these feelings can be evoked in other circumstances as well. Think of yourself surrounded by your closest friends, family, or a romantic partner. Do you not feel comfort, familiarity and belonging? Are you not “at home” in a conversation, or when you play a sport or game? Sometimes, “home” is the feeling itself.
“Home” is an amorphous and plastic concept, able to assume multitudinous forms depending on the context and the time it is referenced. Sometimes it’s a place, other times it’s a feeling, still others it’s a state of mind.
Everyone can rattle off a set of places they call home, describe easily the emotions and memories they associate with them. But ask a hundred people to define “home” and you’ll get a thousand different answers.