Growing Home

I miss home. Perhaps that's not quite right, so let me try again, I miss homeness. We've been away from anything that was a home for almost a year now and between the moving, the buses, the flights, and who knows how many time zones, the idea of having a place feels incredibly distant.

Leaves always make me think of home... not sure why.

Specifically I think I miss that feeling that comes with being home. When I was in college and would go to my parents' house there was a specific smell and feel, an atmosphere I felt at home that I missed at school. In New York, there was an ambiance to our little space, the way our couch felt and the quiet seclusion of the inside of our apartment after walking down a bustling city street. Since we left, though, that ethos has been lacking. We have not been in one place long enough to have a home, the absence of which I feel quite strongly right now. We were only in Colorado for three months and much of that time was spent outside of the house. Those few months were certainly not enough time to feel settled in to the place. And then there was the traveling, moving from place to place to place... Now we are in England and while we will be here for a while (a year at least), I wonder if that is enough time to find a home or if we will simply be living in this flat.

I think homes are made from the wake of our routines. My home becomes shaped by where I put my coat, what I do when I walk in the door, where I sit. It takes time for these things to become habitual. I can't say as I think homes are built or constructed (as if I can construct a space with that kind of atmosphere) but rather grown. Homes, at least in the past for me, have emerged literally from the woodwork and from the couches. Home is the space between my actions, the negative space that gets filled with the parts of me that aren't doing things. It is the feeling of being wrapped up in a warm blanket with a cup of coffee and falling asleep. It is not as if we can actively make a house/apt./flat a home; it happens in its own time and in ways I don't really understand. Home(ness) creeps in slowly and surrounds the places we live...in time.

I think this is why I would get so frustrated at New York City residents who claimed it as their home only a few months after moving there. I knew people, many people, who did so in their eagerness to bear the label of New Yorker... despite not knowing the culture and ethos of the city. Such statements seem to cheapen the idea of home (or homeness) for me... as if home and my address are synonymous.

And with that I sit in the top floor of a gorgeous old English house that I hope will feel like home... but I doubt it will. If we stay here longer than a year then there is a chance but if we move somewhere else, well then we are back to being homeless again... despite our address. What I find ironic is that most of my classmates growing up were desperately trying to get away from home, but as I've continued to grow and continued to travel, I'm surprised with how much I miss it or at least the idea of it. And how right now, after moving around for a while and fulfilling dreams I've (we've) had for years, what I really want is to settle down and start growing a home.