Monday, 1 June 2015

What is home?

I'm the daughter of a military guy - we were on the move from the time I can remember. Every couple of years it was a new school, new best friend, new bedroom...well, you get the drill. My fella is the same with one important difference - both his parents came home lots and his family still does. I could go back to my Dad's hometown - Deloraine - and not know a soul - well, the pharmacist is the son of the pharmacist that was my dad's best pal, who is also the son of the pharmacist when my dad was a little gaffer - but no family that I know of. They are in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver and so forth. My mother's hometown? We never went there. Not once. It is Rossburn, Manitoba and supposed to be a nice sort of place. She has no family there either. I have some cousins from her side of the family - three in Vancouver and two in the western United States - Oregon and California.

I have two sons in Ottawa, a sister in Perth (in Ontario) a step-mother in London, Ontario, a brother in Yellowknife, NWT. I have three grandkids in Nova Scotia, and one in Ottawa. I have a step-dot in St. John's, Newfoundland and a step-son in Halifax, NS.

My fella, on the other hand, has a sister, brother-in-law and his only niece and nephew living in nearby Happy Valley. His kids are my step-kids so you know where they are. His mother (91!) lives in a home in Happy Valley and he has a sister in St. John's and a bro in Ottawa/Montreal. He has at least 16 cousins in the tiny village where we live - I just made that up but if anything I under estimated. He has an uncle and a couple of aunts (three?) that live there too. He has cousins from both sides of his family. Other cousins visit regularly. He even had a great aunt until late last year.

My point is that he feels at home here.
I feel at home with him so I feel at home here too, but if he was from Kalamazoo I'd feel at home there.

Why am I pondering the nature of home? Well, in two weeks I'll be home for a visit. Or I'll be leaving home to go on a vacation. Which is it? I really don't know.

Some of the articles and books I've been reading on the nature of trauma, the roots of addiction, and so forth - particularly but certainly not exclusively as an aboriginal issue - talk about the sense of dislocation. What is that if not a hankering after a home - even nomads have that. They might travel the land but they usually go the same sort of routes and they travel with their home and loved ones all with them.  Have I been looking for a place called home my whole life? Not sure quite honestly. I can't have what lots do - I can't have grown up in one spot - but I can know that this sense of dislocation is more of a spiritual than temporal feeling.

I'll let you know what I come up with.

And you? Where's your home?

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9 comments:

  1. Blondi Blathers1 June 2015 at 15:24

    I was in Rossburn just this winter, on my way to visit friends in Oakburn (next door down the highway, of course). Friends there have always made me feel at home; it's a lovely area, agricultural but also with a good "old hippie" culture.
    But I come from generations (about three on each parent's side) who lived in my home town, which is just down the road 15 or 20 minutes from where I live now. Which also feels like home, since it's so close. Of the many other places around Canada that I have lived, none felt like home and even now I feel slightly misplaced. I have recurring dreams of returning to two places there where I spent a lot of time as a child, and am always so happy and excited in the dreams.

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    1. Jan Morrison2 June 2015 at 07:32

      You were in Rossburn!!!! Man oh man, I'm jealous. I have often wondered why we always went to my dad's home town and never my mother's. We did partly own a cottage on Lake Metigoshe near Deloraine so I guess that was one reason but other than that - why didn't my mother insist? I cannot figure it.
      My sister and I both dream of our Aunt Grace's farmhouse when we have a 'home' dream. It was near Souris, Manitoba and a great place that we went to almost every year - so much more homelike than any of our places! Thanks for dropping by - I'm going to go visit you.

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  2. Anonymous2 June 2015 at 05:10

    Interesting question, Jan! Billy Joel's You're My Home puts it this way: Wherever we're together, that's my home.. I kind of understand that...

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    1. Jan Morrison2 June 2015 at 07:37

      Billy Joel always has the right words (and voice)! I'd have to agree with this. Sometimes when folks ask me where my home town is I tell them 'the back of a station wagon'!

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  3. Lori2 June 2015 at 16:37

    Hi Jan, I am new to your blog as of last week. Really enjoying it. I have had a nomadic past that still resonates today. Your comment, " this sense of dislocation is more of a spiritual than temporal feeling.", really hit a chord. I'll ponder it for some time. Thank you! Lori

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    1. Jan Morrison3 June 2015 at 17:36

      Thanks for coming by! Home seems to have hit home as topics go...

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  4. Wisewebwoman3 June 2015 at 08:35

    I would have to say here on the Edge is where my home is. When I came here 11 years ago and came down the ramp of the ferry I had this incredible visceral sense that this was now my home. I don't relate the sense of home to one person but to place and community. Of course Ireland is my home too but it does not extract the intensity of emotion as it once did from me.

    When I walk on the shore at night, it floods me. Home. This sense of I am right where I'm supposed to be.

    XO
    WWW

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    1. Jan Morrison3 June 2015 at 17:40

      I know that feeling. It's lovely isn't it? I have felt that all over the east coast of Canada , felt it in Cornwall and in Dingle. That sounds crazy but it's true.

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  5. LifeISgood13 June 2015 at 07:22

    Hello Jan,
    I too grew up as a military brat moving every two years and had the same disconnection feelings, your blog is very interesting read.
    You saw my 14yr old daughter, Julia Faith in June 2013 I believe and I now know the reasons why she needed you.
    Would you please please email me at jennifer.mcnish@ns.sympatico.ca

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