What defines a home? 

Wherever we lay our heads to rest has a remarkable impact on the self. Much like our families, while we cannot choose the homes we are born into, we spend much of our lives shaping our own. Some say home is a feeling. But when do we become conscious of this, and how do we begin to define what is, and what is not?

Several words come to mind when one reflects on the place they call home. Ideally, they speak of sanctuary, peace, warmth, stability, and safety. The reality is that not everyone possesses such luxuries. Is a turbulent household, contained within four walls, still a home? How do those displaced by war and violence sustain a sense of belonging? When the physical abode falls away, how do we carry home within us? Perhaps home is defined by what is familiar, regardless of whether it is good or evil.

And yet, there are places that feel like home without ever having been so. Drawn to them, we anoint such places with the honorary title of ‘a home away from home’. For some elusive reason, though entirely unfamiliar, we feel a deep sense of belonging.

But if home can be found in the unfamiliar, it is perhaps never as fixed as we imagine. Whether we remain in one place our entire lives or move between many, belonging reveals itself to be impermanent;  a long-term yet temporary state we inhabit until it is time to move on. Despite this transience, how we maintain a sense of home is deeply telling. 

Across cultures, a sense of home pride endures, whether on home soil or in diaspora. Relocating for trade, or being displaced by war, often leaves one with very little, and yet these are the very people who maintain a remarkable sense of domestic order and home consciousness. It is less that the home shapes the individual, and more that the individual reveals themselves in how they keep a home. 

And so, if home is a physical reflection of who we are within, beyond address and aesthetic, what, then, are our own home truths?