Home is where?

Growing up we had a needlepoint hanging on the wall that read: "Home is Where Your Heart Is". My grandmother had a similar one at her house:

No Matter What
No Matter Where
Its Always Home
If Your Heart Is There

I recently returned from a family reunion in Cape Cod. It was the first time in 6 years we didn't have to fly from California to attend a reunion; we instead drove up from our new home in Virginia. Before heading out to the Cape we spent a day in my hometown, Herkimer NY. While sitting in my parents living room I realized that I hadn't been "home" during the summer season since 2002. It was a strange realization and one that brought back questions I have turned over in my mind for the last 5 years, in brief: What and where is home?


In his book Home: A Short History of an Idea Witold Rybczynski traces the history of the concept of "home" back to 14th century townhomes in Europe. Bourgeouis townhomes provided one of the first senses of domestic comfort and differed dramatically from the contemporaneous castle of the aristrocrat, monastery of the cleric, and hovel of the serf. However medieval homes also stand in stark contrast to 21st century concepts of the idea: people rarely (though increasingly) live where they work; few in our rootless society remain in one place for their entire lives; and our complex food distribution systems leave us disconnected to the location where crops are produced. If the "home" in the 14th century was a permanent residence where people engaged in their trade, slept, and prepared meals from crops that surrounded their town, what is the meaning of "home" today? Definitions abound.

As this is an ongoing question and one on which I've spilled a lot of ink over years (including several research papers while at Fuller and a course proposal to USC), I'll probably devote several future posts to new questions I'm encountering regarding "home". Looking back: In what ways did Los Angeles feel like home during our seven years there? At present: How long will we live in Virginia until it feels like home? Looking forward: How do we create a sense of home for our children, even if we relocate houses or towns down the road? Perhaps home is simply where your heart is, but knowing the location of one's heart is equally perplexing!