People often say that home is where the heart is. My students and I would have discussions about the difference between a house and a home. Home is where we feel we belong the most. It is where we are around people whom we love and who love us. Most of the time, those loved ones are family, but what happens when both by choice and by circumstance one’s family is scattered all over the country? What is home then? If home is where the heart is, what happens when your heart is ripped apart into several places on Earth and in Heaven, our ultimate home?
Throughout life we accumulate things that have meaning to us. We have family heirlooms and pictures we hang on walls. I have photo albums dating back to my childhood. All of these things make me feel at home even when I am in a new place. Also, much of life can be lived anywhere. We go to work. We grocery shop and cook and eat. We sleep, and then get up and do it all again the next day. We make friends in new places, and then the new place feels more like home. It sounds mundane, but if I can find a good hair stylist and a trustworthy mechanic in a new place, I feel as if it can be home.
Some families all stay in the same area, sometimes in the same house, from one generation to the next. I did not choose that life. As a child, I would look at the white streaks in the sky and try to imagine who was on those jets and where they might be going. I liked where I grew up, and I had a good childhood, but I longed for a life somewhere else. I also found as I grew up that I hated winter weather. Putting on three layers of clothes to walk to the mailbox was not for me.
So, my husband and I ventured out to the Southwest where the sky is a deep blue, and the sunsets are crimson against the mountains. It was there that we brought up our children and made friends who became family. Each area of the United States has a culture of its own, and we found that we fit into the lifestyle there even more than the Midwest. The West became home.
Yes, relationships are the most important part of life, but there is something to be said about connection to the land. I feel connected to mountains much more than I ever connected with wheat fields, even though there is a certain beauty to those as well. For me, there is a deep-down feeling of contentment in the West. I recently had to live in another part of the United States, and the people were wonderful, but the weather and the landscape just did not feel like home. No matter how long I stayed, I did not think it would ever be home. So, once again, my husband and I took a leap of faith and moved west. As soon as we curved around the first mountain pass of our road trip, my heart rose, and my soul rejoiced. I was home.