On home.

It's not straightforward.

The concept of home has moved more and more towards centre stage in our western culture over the last few years. Songs like “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros epitomise the longing of so many rudderless, anchoress, discontented people who yearn for an experience of home. The refrain “Home is wherever I’m with you” resonates with those for whom the physical homes of their childhood were not the havens they needed them to be. For them, the search for a feeling of nurture, of rest, of provision, of unconditional love is always present, always in the background even when their focus is elsewhere. And it is a powerful driver. Even for those of us for whom home was safe and warm, comforting and nurturing, we still yearn to replicate that and recreate the sense of ease and contentment that we knew as small children.

I met with a kindred this week. A woman whom I’ve known for more than a decade, and with whom I share a similar multi-faceted relationship with the concept of home. Since we met she has lived in five houses and I have lived in four, and prior to that we are both in double digits for dwellings lived in. She has lived in five states of Australia and I have lived in three. A geographical sense of home is foreign to both of us, and at the same time, each of us feels an affinity with certain places. The concept of home is one to which we often return in our conversation when we meet, which is less frequent now given we are separated by more than four thousand kilometres.

When talking about whether somewhere “feels like home” we usually can’t really answer, but we can say whether we feel “settled” somewhere, or not. But we’re always talking about a place, a location. We’re never talking about people or groups.

In all my years of feeling homesick, missing people, missing places, missing events, I’ve revised and reframed my understanding of home. I’ve been mulling it over for two days now, since I saw my dear friend, and I’ve landed somewhere that has surprised me.

I get what Edward Sharpe et al are talking about with their inference that home is about a person, not a place. And I can say with certainty that there are people in my life who, when I am with them, I feel completely at home. Safe. Seen. Known. Known and loved anyway. And that’s the real kicker, isn’t it? Known and loved anyway.

The thing is, though, that people change. I know some would argue that they don’t, but really, sometimes they do. Sometimes we do. Life buffets us, throws us around, slams us against walls, and leaves us gasping… and not everyone bounces. The blows can change us, bring cynicism, bring bitterness, bring resentment, bring reclusiveness. Someone who once felt like home can change, and a person who was once our refuge, our solid and dependable comfort, now feels like a rickety shelter shed in a blinding gale. It’s not the same, and we are no longer comforted and nurtured by their company. And no matter how we try, they might never feel like a refuge for us again, and we need to honour their prerogative to change although it leaves us bereft. It’s a kind of grief.

For me, and I suspect perhaps you, Dear Reader, impermanence is the only permanent of which we can truly be assured. We grow and change, and so do all the places and people we have called home. The temporal will never completely satisfy the eternal twinge in all our hearts to find and dwell in a perfect home, be it bricks and mortar or flesh and bones. I think the best we can hope for is moments, or perhaps seasons, of home. Times, some longer than others, of realisation, or revelation, or acceptance, or nurture, or shelter, or beauty, or contentment, or welcome, or nourishment, or recognition, or celebration: all experiences of encounter where we are known and loved anyway. To experience this is true privilege.

The thing is, even with moving houses and people changing, whenever I revisit old homes and old friends, there is always a fondness and familiarity that almost brings me to tears. There is a re-experiencing of the profound delight of being known and loved anyway that is impossible to dilute or dismiss. Those times, places, and people where I learned and knew things for the first time. Things about myself. Things about the world. Things about how people work, about how we interact and react, and how to distinguish the real from the counterfeit. These are moments of encounter that build a home. And the memory of them is often just as powerful as the experience of them in the first place.

Home is familiar. Home is honest. Home is safe. It is a collection, a collage, of all our gathered encounters that have brought us nurture and love. Every one of us has a collection of such encounters, and we treasure them because they have taught us a wonderful truth: that it is possible to be seen, and to be acknowledged, and to be known and loved anyway.