After lunch yesterday, a colleague asked me a simple question: “when are you going home?”
To which I answered, simply, “in a few hours, can’t stay too late today.”
Apparently, I misunderstood. My colleague was asking me about my impending trip to Toronto — my trip “home” — that I have planned later this week.
This small exchange got me thinking: when did my apartment in DC become “home” for me? What exactly makes a place “home” for anybody?
It’s no surprise that it took me quite some time to feel settled here after my move to Washington. For the first month to six weeks, nothing could feel less like home. I was constantly thinking of what — and who — I had left behind in Toronto, planning every minute of my next trip back north.
Today, things have changed. Now, when I think of home, I think of sitting in my leaf chair in my sunroom sipping citron oolong tea and reading the New Yorker. Something has changed, and I’m not quite sure what it is.
What makes your place feel like home? When did you feel like the place where you live right now was truly home?
I’m not sure what made me flip the switch here: it could be when I started having visitors over, or when bought that beautiful bronze photographer’s lamp to sit next to my leaf chair. It could be when I started referring to it as “my place” as opposed to “the apartment I’m renting.” It could be when the barista at Greenberry’s started recognizing me and calling me by a nickname. It could be when I bought my first set of daffodils and planted them in my mini-garden on my balcony.
Or, it could be, after all, when I realized that home wasn’t where my memories lived, but instead a place to make new and lasting memories.
I’m still not sure what made my little apartment in Arlington feel like home, but that’s what it is. As much as I miss Toronto, it has become the place “I used to live” but still love. I may move back there one day and find a little place in the Annex or near the Distillery District to live, but until that time, DC is home.
It is the place where I’m making new memories and experiencing new things and gathering new stories to tell.
(The gorgeous photo I’ve used in this post is by Giovanni Orlando.)
Great post Vasta!
I remember when I first got married, my wife and I moved into a nice apartment off of Yonge Street in Thornhill. A great neighbourhood. But it never felt like home.
Then we most recently moved into a one floor bungalow near York Mills JK. And it feels like home.
Difference? We have a porch we can sit out on and enjoy. We have a backyard to run around and play in. It’s not the biggest piece of property. And I miss my Thornhill neighbourhood. But this feels like home.
Until I go “home” for some of mom’s Indian cooking…..
I loved that post!
I know you’ll call me when you get back to Toronto and give me a full update on life in Washington.
Have a safe trip and see you soon (yup, I so called it on FB). I had a feeling and it was right.
that reminds me a short movie I saw and that stroke me when I first moved here. (and Canadian btw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__qWoUeU6tI
the end of the movie is something like “home is not a place, it’s people”. I love that.
so you can be home here with friend AND home there with familly
Denis, love that film. You’re right, it is people that make home, and I’ve met some wonderful people here. I have to admit, though, feeling comfortable with your _place_ makes it a lot easier to open up to great people. It has taken me some time to feel at home in this place, but I’m glad I finally got here.
Marija! I miss you! Talk to you very soon my dear, we have so much to catch up on. Also, you should come visit me here!
Karim, one of the biggest reasons I’m excited about going to Toronto for a few days this weekend is to hang out with my mom and grandma — and have some of my grandmother’s wonderful cooking!
I left Grenoble, the place where I was born and grew up almost 11 years ago. Yet, that’s the only place I ever feel comfortable calling home and I am still not sure why… Whenever I ‘accidently’ refer to the place where I live as ‘home’, it sounds so wrong to me… I always prefer using the city’s name, or saying the street number or simply ‘the house’… I say, I am going back to Oxford. Or Back to 58. Or back to the house… Home, can mean so many things. To me, it’s always been the place where I was born, where I grew up and where my family still is. But who knows, perhaps that will change the day I find a place… like home.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed, Natasha, that you find that one place where you feel at home soon. Until then, you’re welcome to come hang out with me at my place any time. Might not be home, but I promise it will be fun! =)