Of Houses and Homes

I used to ask my students to close their eyes and imagine a place that they walked into - perhaps for the first time - and instantly felt at home. The vast majority of them would name their parents house or their grandparents house, sometimes a beloved oft-visited vacation home - rarely did they mention someplace that was shiny and new.

Now I've heard that:

Home is where the heart is.

Home is where you hang your hat.

Home is just another word for you.

I get all of that. I do. But I think there's more to it.

An example: My favorite aunt, Aunt Jennie, lived in the same suburban split level all my life. Growing up they lived about five hours away from us and I just lived for those visits to her home. I loved it there. Looking back, I couldn't tell you why. It's nothing I can put my finger on. It was just a place that made me happy. A place where people who made me happy lived.

When I was in grad school I lived much closer to her than I did to my own mom - about an hour away. I went to her house almost every weekend to study because I would get distracted in my apartment, but I could concentrate at her house. Plus she cooked for me. Once when I was sick, I bundled myself up and drove my sick self up to her house because any difficulty the ride imposed upon me would be more than balanced out by the TLC I would receive once I got there. It was not a bad decision.

A few years ago my cousin, her son, bought a beautiful HUGE house. As she was getting on in years and recently widowed, he built a wing on his house for her. It is beautiful and has about as much square footage as her whole house did. It was an amazingly loving gesture. The last time I visited her in the old place was nice - bittersweet, of course - but I was happy for her. By all of the things we measure standards by, she was trading up. Bigger, newer - you know what society values as well as I do. She was going to be livin' large.

So it took me by surprise when, as we were all packed up and ready to leave - hugs all around - I just couldn't walk out the door. I couldn't walk out that door knowing it was the last time. I was overwhelmed. Tom and the girls started packing up the car and I just sat on the steps - bewildered - overwhelmingly sad and totally surprised by my own emotions. Aunt Jennie sat down next to me. I've probably got a good 6 or 7 inches on her, but she sat down next to me and put her arm around me. I instinctively buried my head in her shoulder and sobbed. I felt guilty even as I was doing it. This was HER home. She shouldn't have been comforting me, I should have been comforting her. She didn't speak, except to say, "I know, Tam, it's ok. I know." I didn't speak at all. I didn't have any words.

I had never lived there, but it was home. And I'd never see it again.

Tom used to get annoyed - well, probably more hurt than annoyed - with me when I referred to going to my parents house as going home. But it is. My parents house is small and humble - nothing too special, certainly not in comparison to the McMansions springing up all over the place. But it makes me feel so recharged when I spend some time there - even just a very little bit of time. Recharged. Grounded. Loved. Home.

My mother always referred to her mother's house as home. "Going up home".

My grandmother referred to her mother's house as home - long after her mother had passed away, when she asked one of us to drive her to their town to visit relatives she would say, "Can you drive me down home sometime this weekend?" So even without her mother, that place was still home.

Dad's was always "The Homestead". Now the homestead conjures up images of a big sprawling ranch to me. If it does the same for you, erase that image right now. Dad's homestead - where his parents raised nine children - was a two bedroom house set up on a small hill. That's right. Nine children. Two bedrooms. The parents had a room, the girls shared a room, and the boys slept in the attic. This sounds like a nightmare to me! It sounds like home to Dad.

Because home is more than a house - and I think it's also more than the people who inhabit the house. I still love my Aunt Jennie. I still love visiting her and spending time with her in her big ole sprawling house. But it's not home.

I think it's perhaps a complicated equation involving a place and people and perhaps even time. Home has a feel and a smell and a sound. Home is a multi-sensory experience. Home cannot be forced or manufactured; home just needs to be.

Maybe I'm overthinking it (what? me? no!).

It is what it is and you know it when you feel it. What feels like home to you?