Defining Home

One of the questions we get asked often about our lifestyle is where is home?  Occasionally I find some quip like, “We are professionally homeless” which leaves most recipients completely perplexed but I have been asked enough that I sat myself down with the question to search for an answer.  I want to answer this question with a simple old saying like home is where you hang your hat but find that the answer is a little more complex for me. 

As I write this, home is a lovely house in wine country California with 2 adorable pups that we are temporarily “parenting” while we house sit.  When I am in the town, we sold our last house in, home is at the residence of a beautiful friend who lets us drop into her house and hang out for a few days or even weeks.  When visiting family, their house is my home if just temporarily. 

Why such a convoluted answer, well when we decided to become citizens of the world and sell the house my definition changed.  The beautiful house we inhabited with our children was certainly home in every way: the place we lived, laughed, cried and celebrated. 

How can so many places answer the question “where is home” for me?  I could say that home is where I sleep or where I eat or even where my car is parked.  The one thing that they all had in common when I did some soul searching was that every house I have lived in held a plethora of memories for me and in this new chapter of life the memories are being made in the homes of family members, perfect strangers who often become friends, and even in some amazing VRBO properties in other countries. 

How fun is it to say that while one of our daughters was visiting “our place” in Spain (where we lived for a while this spring) she got engaged and we all had the opportunity to celebrate together on a nearby rooftop bar in our neighborhood.  Or to recall that one of our grandchildren had their first visit to the ocean while visiting us in our place on the California coast.  The commonality is memories and conversations that end with things like saying to friends who are visiting, “when we get home tonight let’s play cards or take a dip in the hot tub.” 

Is the house mine forever? NO! but the memories are.  For me memories are home and one day when grandma and pops have their own house again, I hope that when the kids and grandkids come to visit, a day out and about ends with someone saying something like grandma will you read me a book when we get back home, even if its only home to them for a few days.