Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Patricia Caspers on February 11, 2010 at 8:54am

As a native Californian learning to love and live in New England, I often think about what home means. There's a line in a Josh Ritter song that I appreciate now, "You didn't know that it was home 'til you up and left." That's how I feel about California. I guess home used to be where all of my memories were, and now I'm trying to re-define it. I'm not finished yet.

I love the Maya Angelou quote. I'm going to borrow it!

Tricia

http://www.patriciacaspers.blogspot.com

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lisa Ann Millen on May 27, 2010 at 12:35pm

I came across this question of yours today - just as I was contemplating how much I missed my home on a lake in N. Michigan. I was actually reading my journals from my summers there - it was SO DIFFICULT to read but I made myself do it because I wanted to feel that sense of belonging and safety I associated with that place. Its not just my house there (which I designed and my husband built) but everything familiar; the sounds of the water and birds, the light reflections off the water, the breeze moving thru the pine trees ... all that is home to me and I do wonder at times if I can feel "at home" anywhere else. I can so "let down" there and I struggle to achieve that in the other places I have lived. I grew up in that small lake community but I have lived more years away from there than actually there. Still, this the place of childhood memories and connecting to the land & people that I love. At this point in my life, I'm not sure I agree with Maya's quote ??!! In a sense I don't want to be at home anywhere else - I want to be back at MY HOME! I realize this is a rather self-defeating way of thinking :) .... these are my ponderings on home.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Diane Meier on May 28, 2010 at 8:27am

This Spring my first novel, "The Season of Second Chances" was published. It is, nominally, about a teacher who moves from her emotionally disconnected, Columbia University-Riverside Drive life, to what she calls the "wilds of Massachusetts" - and the incestuous imposition of small-town-college life in Amherst. Her New York apartment had been only an extension of her office. She'd never painted, held a dinner party or even entertained a friend. She had cartons of family heirlooms she'd never unpacked. And here, with a new chance ahead, she buys a decrepit Victorian and is forced to face her own ideas of what a home should be. While a lot of decisions she makes are about style - the underlying issues of style are, I think, a kind of truth-telling exercise in finding a unique voice with which one expresses one's real essence to the world. And -- if you're wrinkling your nose at the Martha Stewartness of it all, I'm not alone; some of our (or my) most treasured writers - Henry James, Edith Wharton, Zola, Flaubert, O'Hara - are those who revealed style as a clear representation of character.

The elements (objects, light, memories, mirrors, sounds, quiet, views, nature, neighbors, colors, textures, temperatures, loved-ones, work, art, ambition, rest) we choose to make us feel "at home" -- and -- what we choose to tell the world about the things that bring us true comfort, or ease our way - physically, emotionally, spiritually - through the lives we live, become the very elements that differentiate us in the world. They are our 'mark'. And nothing articulates this more fluently than what we make of our "home". Think of those very few but very wonderful places you visited growing up - a grandparent's house, or the house of a friend - where, when you entered, you knew the whole experience was charged with their being and the generosity of their sharing it with you. I have a few of these in my memory bank -- and I'll bet you do too, or you wouldn't be asking the question.

Without sounding too precious, I hope - I actually believe it might be the highest form of human expression. It's what we share with the world that no one else can give. We don't need permission or payment, we don't need the cooperation of publishers or critics or clients or the public. It's just ours. Our own art form. And the more personal, the more unique, the more deeply considered -- the better.

I couldn't endorse your exploration with more heartfelt enthusiasm. I long to hear how others feel!
Diane

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lisa Ann Millen on May 31, 2010 at 3:20pm

Diane, Your last paragraph speaks loudly to me - as an artist, self-expression has been a consistant way of living for me. It makes sense that when I gave up my lake home, a part of who I was went along with it - further explaining to me the constant struggle I have had within my spirit and soul to let go. Many of my family members have suggested that is exactly what I needed to do; "let it go" implying that it was just a "material possession" that can easily be replaced if I allowed it to... I never was able to wrap my heart around that way of thinking and was not able to articulate why. Thank you for so beautifully capturing with your words, a human truth that we all need to visit.... Congrats on your novel coming out - I look forward to reading it. It could be my life in reverse!

• ▶ Reply