The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.
Maya Angelou
Each month, my Unitarian church chooses a theme that influences everything from the Sunday readings to ministers’ sermons. The goal is to push us deeper into our own spiritual practices through conversation, reflection, and exploration. Some themes, such as resilience, are driven by the events that unfold around us. Think last winter’s Metro Surge. Others, like hope, are far more general in nature. This October, the theme is something I already spend a lot of time contemplating — Home.
On the surface, the idea of home might seem fairly simple. I expect that when asked about their homes, most people’s immediate responses would be their houses or apartments. Home is where they sleep at night and find escape from the world at large.
Digging deeper, home might become a little larger. Perhaps a neighborhood, city, or country.
Those are all reasonable answers and acceptable ways to think about home. However, if you start peeling back the onion, you soon find that home is a much richer concept than a building or a spot on a map. Look beyond its physical attributes and home becomes more of an emotion than something you can see or touch.
That’s not to say that our senses don’t play a role in the concept of home. The feelings of home can be triggered by a scent, sound, or even the sensation of a warm breeze. I have personally felt my Arizona home here in Minnesota when the wind hits my face just right.
Speaking of Arizona
I have been living in Minnesota for most of my adult life and yet I continue to maintain a home-like connection to Arizona. I find the rocks, cactus, mountains, pine forests, rattlesnakes, and even the overbearing heat a sense of belonging. I don’t get there as often as I would like, but when I am there, the word home immediately pops into my head.
Home is where one starts from. T. S. Eliot
Some of this may have to do with how different Arizona is from Minnesota and my feelings might not be the same if I were born in the nearby state of Wisconsin. An Arizona cactus looks nothing like a Minnesota maple tree, but the trees in Wisconsin look identical to what I see here in the Twin Cities — along with the rest of the terrain. So, while the term home applies to both Arizona and Minnesota, I feel nothing of the sort for Wisconsin. Clearly, familiarity is not the the only requirement for my sense of home.
Like a Perfumed Woman (The Anti-Place)
Quite a few well-known songs made their first appearance in mostly forgotten musicals. For instance, nearly everyone knows Singing in the Rain, but are you aware that it made its debut in the obscure film, The Hollywood Revue of 1929? It wasn’t until decades later that the 1952 Singing in the Rain film placed it into the category of an American standard.
The song Joey, Joey, Joey has a similar history. It was written for a musical most people have never heard of — The Most Happy Fella. Despite the obscurity of the play, Joey, Joey, Joey has been recorded by Peggy Lee, Johnny Hartman, Johnny Mathis, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis Jr, Bill Henderson, Nancy Wilson, and countless others. It’s a beautiful, haunting melody that takes the listener into the life of a man who cannot find contentment with what many might call a comfortable life.
The song is the quintessential anti-place home song. The lyrics include:
Joey, Joey, Joey
Joey, Joey, Joe
You’ve been too long in one place
And it’s time to go, time to go
And more importantly:
You’ve been too long in one town
And the harvest time’s come and gone.
That’s what the wind sings to me
When the bunk I’ve bunkin’ in
Gets to feelin’ too soft and cozy,
When the grub they’ve been cookin’ me
Gets to tastin’ too good,
When I’ve had all I want
Of the ladies in the neighborhood
As the lyrics make perfectly clear, the idea of home for Joey is not a place. It’s the feeling of being free and unencumbered by beds, food, and any sense of neighborhood. For Joey, home is the open road, with the next big opportunity just around the bend.
As a July-born Cancer, that would not be me. As much as I would like to romanticize Joey’s rambling, carefree life, I need time before newness becomes comfortable. I happen to like the idea of a cozy bed and tasty grub. That doesn’t mean I am afraid to try new things, though. It means that rather than jumping in, I dip my toe before easing myself down. I will get there, but one must be patient.
I guess I am a little like Frodo. Despite the fact that I will not be rushed, I eventually find my way.
It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to. J. R. R. Tolkien
The Stage Has Been Set
So, what is home? Is it the place where I begin and end my day? Is it the community in which I surround myself? Is it where I find comfort or feel challenged? Is it the people who ask about me if I fail to appear? Is it in the arms of someone who loves me? Is it the sense of belonging that defies explanation?
Yes.
Home is stepping off a plane in Phoenix and looking out the terminal window at Piestewa Peak. It’s the front porch of my 122-year-old Saint Paul house. It’s sitting with my male friends as we attempt to solve the entirety of the world’s problems (and then some). It’s being surrounded by the pandemonium of four extremely active grandchildren. It’s playing Irish banjo on the shore of Lake Superior.
However…
As much as I love my house, I am aware that it is transitory. As with its previous owners, there will come a day when I too must leave. It’s not a day I look forward to, but it’s not something I can put off forever.
I love my grandchildren and they will grow up and head out on their own journeys. I hope to live long enough to witness their launches.
The Phoenix Valley has changed so much since my birth. Friends and family have died. Many of the buildings I once knew so well have been torn down. My beautiful Sonoran desert is being bulldozed to make way for more and more people.
Like me, my friends will age and our voices will be silenced. There will come a time when my fingers are no longer able to do as I ask them to do.
One day, nearly every aspect of what I think of as home today will no longer be there for me. Like most people, I am no stranger to the grief of leaving or losing a home. That’s simply the nature of being alive and try as I might, I am incapable of stopping the progression of time.
I’ve learned that home is not a place, it’s a feeling. I can make the flat look as pretty as I can, put as many flower boxes on the window sill as I want, put a welcome mat outside the front door, hang a Home Sweet Home sign over the fireplace, and take to wearing aprons and baking cookies, but the truth is that I know I don’t want to stay here forever. Cecelia Ahern
And yet, I will always have a home. It, or most likely they, may not look like what I call my homes today, but I expect that they will evoke the same feelings of love and belonging. Whether I experience my new homes through the physical senses or feel them inside my heart, I will know them for what they are and I will be at peace. That is a given for us Cancers.
Epilogue and Acknowledgement
As this article draws to a close, I need to recognize that I write from a place of privilege. I am male, straight, white, university educated, financially secure, and live in a reasonably safe community. Far too many people around the world cannot say the same. Even folks in my beloved Twin Cities are being harassed and driven from their physical homes by a misguided government.
I am grateful for the many blessings in my life and do not take them for granted. My privilege and beliefs impel me to do my part to fight for those who are struggling to maintain their own sense of home. As Maya Angelou so clearly states at the outset of this piece, the safe-space of home is an ache we all share.
Thank you for reading.
Without the touch of your hand
and the sound of your voice
without the beat of your heart
pressed closed to my chest
without the stories we write
and the secrets we share
our dreams shaped into reality
and our reality fashioned back into dreams
Without the together of us
I feel lost and confused
aimless and without direction
I am in and out of tune
like a song that wanders from key to key
calling home to none
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