Home. What is home? Is home a need? Is home a mood? Is home really a place? In “Walden” David Thoreau describes home as, simply, ‘a place to sit’. Defined as such, home can be anywhere, anyplace. Maybe there’s more to it than that, but let’s stick with his definition for a moment, ‘a place to sit’.
Think about situations or events that require people to gather in a place together for a certain number of hours. This can be a wedding, or a dinner, or a class, or a seminar (see ‘start your own dog island‘).
At these events, people arrive into a place, a room, that they have never been to before. The first thing they do is find a place to sit. A place to hang their coat, to put their namecard, to keep their notebook, to set their wineglass. At a wedding “where you sit” determines your relationship with the place, with the couple, with the family, and sometimes with society at large (think of the classic “oh we put you at the kids table since you’re still single” gimmick in movies).
A few months ago we held our first “Start your own dog island” seminar. Twenty five groups were represented, each with access, ownership, or usage rights of islands in various parts of the world. It was a great, tear jerking event for us. (We’ll hopefully be having another one soon, but must work to support the growth of these new ones).
At this three-day event, people showed up, chose a spot to sit right as they arrived in the first morning, and retained that particular spot for the remainder of the next three days, even though there was a total of twelve time-separated sessions, three different days, and tons of demonstrations outside with our canine friends.
In keeping with Walden’s definition of home as simply “a place to sit”, it sure seems that people choose home PRIOR to taking significant time to understand the lay of the land. Instead of taking the time, they arrive, look at the strange room, and choose their seat based mostly on habits of preferring back, front, side, or middle.
Then over the course of three days, instead of their increasing familiarity with the event room causing them to reevaluate the position they have selected to sit, they continue to hold that same position, because over time it develops familiarity, it serves as HOME.
This is pretty fairly significant. Even though very little thought may have been given to the spot selected, that spot really does become home for people during the event.
Imagine what would happen if someone came in early on day #2 and took a spot that “belonged” to someone else. That someone else would arrive, realize his “home” had been taken, and reevaluate how to find a new home (or, sometimes, in some situations, he might figure out a way to reclaim his initial selection).
So what does all this mean about home? If home is simply a place to sit, then having a place to sit is not really all that simple. Having a place to sit is the same as having a place to sleep, a place to store your clothes, a place to rendezvous with your family each evening. Home is a place you can count on. Through decoration, and placement of objects, home is a place you can wear, like clothes. Home is a place where I can open my electric bill, put it on the table, and decide to think about it later, and let it continue to be in that spot on the table, without worry that it will be lost, taken, confiscated, or blown away.
So what is the difference between someone who lives in one home for ten years and someone who lives in ten homes in that same time period? Does one person feel untethered, lost, wanting? Does one person feel stagnant, bored, scared? Having no home is called “homeless” and being homeless is traditionally an intensely undesirable state of being. So clearly the need for having a home is important and core to our needs. But let’s not look at either extreme of home ownership, one end being having no home, and the other end having multiple homes.
Where is the sweet spot? Is having ONE home, a place to always go back to, a place you can go back to 20 years later and it is still your home, a GOOD thing? Is THAT the sweet spot of home? Or maybe the sweet spot is in the regular but not frenetic changing of home, every year? Every few years? There is even a place I’ve lived for six weeks that I continue to carry a deep home connection with.
So what is it? How can I conclude this thought journey? Where is ‘home’ for this idea? Where can this idea sit and relax? Well, relaxation, sitting, home, is always in relation to its opposite. Home would be nothing if not for where we go and what we do when “standing”. That’s the counterbalance, but still, what is the conclusion here? What IS the home here? In fact, even in this art of writing, a “home” is needed, a place to come back to. A place to complete the journey, a place to set the pen down, to click on the publish button. Conclusions feel good. They are the opposite of being ‘left hanging’; so is sitting.
So what’s left hanging here?
Captain’s Log: June 17, 2010 7:16 am
Year #32, Month #395, Week #1,717, Day #12,008
89th Corridor, West Dog Island
This is beautiful: “In “Walden” David Thoreau describes home as, simply, ‘a place to sit’.” I pictured various homes and desires for homes and connections with people as I read your post. And I pictured various sitting places
The amazing little blueberry has emerged as nature’s number one source of antioxidants among fresh fruits and vegetables. It is for this reason I choose to wander among the birds and the foxes in search of the freshest, most bestest blueberries on earth.
And since these blueberries never stay great in one place, I must wander the earth in search of the new best ones. So for me, home is where the blueberry is.