The Meaning of Home

We talked about what “home” means for us. We talked about where and when we feel at home, about the people who make or made us feel that way and about the comforts of our own homes. We shared our sadness for those who’ve had to flee their homes, for those for whom home is not a safe place to be and for those who have no homes. The strong emotions of those conversations inspired some of us to share our thoughts in the poetry and prose which follows. We hope that our insights are meaningful to you too. We hope also that, after reading them, you may experience the same sense of gratitude for “home” that we experienced as we left our meetings.

Jolene Sheehan

Home is a story I tell myself,  
Stored away in symbols,  
Talismans full of small miracles 
To be cracked open  
In times of need,  
The way heat packs 
Comfort cold hands in pockets.

Home is made up of silhouettes,  
The outlines of things I'd rather forget  
And don't look at directly,  
Instead seeing them as signposts  
Towards the regrets and absences  
That I define home against.

Home is something I make  
But that also makes me.  
I am the end result  
Of the assembly line of homes  
I pass through,  
And I'm also the factory  
That makes them inside of me.

Mark Taylor

Home is the safest place.  Home is wherever you feel accepted, wherever you can be you. Home is the arms of somebody you love.  Home is a little slice of the world where you can simply be.  Home is a leaky pipe you try to pretend isn’t real because it will ruin your month.  Home is that kitchen you hate but can’t afford to change.  Home is that paint you hate but aren’t allowed to change.  Home is putting the cat out before an inspection.  Home is black mould on the walls.  Home is a steady investment for someone richer than you.  Home is for twelve months until you move on again.  Home is for one night until you move on again.  Home is the corner that feels safest.  Home is so important they’ll fine you for not having one.  Home is the place you can’t go back to because they’ll kill you.  Home is yours until they take it.  Home is the scraps they give you afterwards.  Home is a tent after an earthquake.  Home is the ten thousand tons of concrete they drop on top of you.  Home is falling into the sea.  Home is a bright blue jewel in the blackness, getting so hot you can’t live there anymore.

Home is when two children face each other and raise their hands in front of them, fingers touching to make a roof.  Home is their friends piling in and sheltering underneath.  Home is when your arms get tired and I take your place.

Pauline Omoboye

More than bricks and mortar
A home is where most of us live
It’s a place where you should find sanctuary
A place where we can give
 
A home you can share with, family, friends and people
Who need a place called home
It gives a sense of belonging
Creating an atmosphere that usually sets the tone
 
Just close the door as you enter, keeping out the cold
You have that security, a place that you can hold
A home is more than living space
Walls have ears you know
The marks upon the door frames showing children how they grow
 
Secrets and untold stories cocooned inside a home
I see my home as luxury
I never take for granted the place that I own
 
Home is in a community creating our base
Most of us can settle down in our private space
Home is not just a building it can be a country where we are born
It’s a place with familiar faces, with a garage or a lawn
 
Home can be within us, our inner core
Home is when you find the place and couldn’t ask for more
 
Home can be a feeling, a memory and a dream
For me home is my very being
You know what I mean
So, the next time you enter remember how privileged, how fortunate we can be
And that feeling of belonging is me.

Shane Murray

Away from Home

Leaving home at 18, to cut loose from family ties and reinvent myself in a strange city, was a thrilling prospect. But sharing a room with Antoine was a profound shock. He was tanned, coiffured and impeccably dressed in a mohair suit that should have made him look ridiculous amid all the long hair, t-shirts and denim but rather gave him an allure and sophistication I had only seen in the cinema. I watched enthralled as he arranged his collection of French novels on the bookshelf and retrieved a pack of Gitanes from a smart leather bag slung from his shoulder. When he casually pointed out his black BMW by the roadside, my feelings of otherness and inferiority intensified.

That first evening, we took a short stroll through the park to the campus. At the Student Union bar I ordered a beer and asked what he wanted.

“A Bloody Mary.”

I managed to suppress the question, hoping the barman would understand. He did. The exotic brew was handed over. After a few minutes Antoine took his glass and wandered over to a group of admiring girls, leaving me to drink alone feeling dull and adrift. But another lost soul looking for a straw to clutch was nearby.  A Scouser at the bar nodded and exclaimed:

“Y’arite!”

He recognised my Manc inflection and offered to buy me a pint. It turned out he was also sharing with a posh boy. We wondered whether the Accommodation Officer was taking the piss but he was surprisingly amenable to our suggestion of swapping room-mates and soon I felt less disconnected and more at ease in my new abode. With mutual support we made more friends. We enjoyed laying our accents on a bit thicker, vying for the most obscure vernacular and chivvying anyone in our group who was slow to buy a round.

Classes were no less alienating than that first encounter with Antoine. I knew I was unprepared for this new life when my tutor upbraided me for saying ‘ye know’ at the end of each sentence.

“I hope you don’t write your essays the way you speak!”

One weekend Scouse Pete took me home to see his mam. She had a kind face and a soft brogue to match. Apparently, I endeared myself to her when she served Sunday dinner and I remarked:

“I love a bit of cabbage.”

I was a step closer to home, amongst my kind of people where I belonged.

Tony Goulding

 “Home” is word which has such a significant meaning that in common uses it is often linked with a qualifying word akin to the way “friend” is used. Whatever the combination, however, there is always a common thread of a sense of belonging and of familiarity.

It is often only when leaving home that we appreciate its true significance. This can manifest itself in a feeling of deep loss leading to homesickness. Most universities and other colleges have long understood the impact such feelings can have on new students and endeavoured to engender a “home from home” for them in a variety of ways.

When I went away to college, I was not immune from such feelings but luckily was able to find in the University Chaplaincy a room where I could spend time studying while also making new friends. Some of whom became lifelong friends I am still in contact with.

After exploring this subject with the group, I concluded that as human beings we are intrinsically social beings and from our earliest origins in seeking shelter in caves from the elements and predatory animals we have sought a “home”.

This desire is more than a basic need for shelter and is linked to both family ties and friendships, and the difference between “house” and “home”.

Finally, although we may create homes in various places there is often also a longing for a return to some idealized home.

Anne Delargy

Three little pigs

Those three little pigs were homeless
But free, at last.
They rushed to build 
Their own lives, their own homes 
But hadn't reckoned with
The Big Bad Wolf
Huffing and puffing at their door 
Pursuing them from
Straw to sticks 
And, finally, to bricks. 
The third pig 
Was the smartest;
And generous enough
To share her home
With her quite silly siblings. 
There's a real lesson here:
Find the brightest, kindest 
One in your family
And move in with them.


My doll and me

What did you bring with you, darling,
Here to this desolate, scary place?
Mama always kept a bag by the front door,
With passports, photos, the key to our house;
But now Mama is dead, and the bag
Is lost under the rubble.

When the bombing started
I was sleeping with my doll
(The one that Teta gave me)
And I clutched her to my side. 
No time to gather  clothes or books
And I couldn't find my cat.

This is our home now, 
These plastic sheets on top of mud 
And this is what I have now,
What I brought with me:
My name, and my doll.


Nesting

I'm watching the magpies 
Squabbling loudly, but
Working together to build
These intricate, complex structures
High high up in swaying trees.
Every year, they build here,
Using whatever they can find:
Plastic as well as moss and leaves,
And shiny, stolen things.
Always the same design, though;
A warm, safe, cosy home
Where they will lay their eggs
And feed their fledglings 
Till they find their wings 
And fly away to find
Their own mates,
Their own nests.
Then they abandon them.
They only build once a year;
Their homes last long enough 
For each new family, 
But next year they'll return again, 
Commanded by the season
To the same place 
To start again.

And I'm wondering 
Are we the only creatures 
Who move into structures
That someone else has built
For safety, warmth and shelter,
Then "make it our own ", 
Fill it with possessions, people, memories, pets;
Stay there year on year
As the possessions change,
The people move,
The pets pass on, 
The memories grow fainter.
And I ask myself
What is it that makes this house
My home?

Jean Thompson

Home thoughts

Home is where the heart is. So goes the saying.

In our small group there was quite a lot of discussion about home as a physical entity of bricks and mortar and home as an emotional base of warmth and security.

How fortunate we felt to have that physical entity of a building to call home when so many people don’t have even that. They don’t have the luxury of regarding home as an emotional base, so preoccupied are they with having even the basics of protection. A blue tarpaulin sheet given by an Aid Agency, or a shop doorway where you can be left alone to get through the night as best as you can. That is home to them.

Whatever lack of emotional support we may have had in the house we called home, we still had somewhere we knew we could go to. To paraphrase Robert Frost, (who she would not have been aware of) my mother used to say

 “Home is where you can go when you can’t go anywhere else”

In our small group we also talked about how some places we lived immediately felt like home, and some never did no matter how long we lived there.

After my marriage, we lived in 5 different towns in 8 years, but none of the places we lived really felt like home. Even our charming stone cottage in North Wales where our two children were born, was just somewhere to live that never felt as if it would be for ever.  When we moved back to Manchester, it felt like at last I was coming home, and where I should be, and that was not just about the house.

The house I lived in for 42 years will always be home to me with its memories of good and not so good times. Even though I now live in a comfortable and spacious flat with good neighbours and lovely well maintained gardens, I do not think it will ever be home in the full meaning of that word.

Of course, I will not be living here for 42 years to put that to the test!

Annette Bennett

Home.

Home is a concept
Meaning
Idea
That is as individual
As people are.
A place of belonging
Longing,
Peace,
A refuge
From a busy
Weary world.
Rest
Refreshment
A special feeling
Known only to us,
Where happy memories
Are made
And have stayed
With us,
Are stored
To be recalled
At anytime.

Sadly home
For many
Is a place
Of pain
Heartache,
Regrets,
Bad experiences,
Lost opportunities
For happiness.
Hurts when we remember
Making it difficult
To find any
Good thoughts
To carry through life
With us.
But time is a great healer
Can help steal
Away this negativity.
We can find
A new home
Where we can feel
Safe and comfortable.
Our heart desires
To be there.
Fresh bright positivity
To flourish and thrive,
Make memories of joy.
A home to be fond of
To be treasured
Where we
Will always
Want to return
Time after time. 

Margaret Kendall

I close the living room curtains as the light fades.  It’s cosy and as I sit back down in my comfortable chair, I feel contented.  I spend more time at home these days.  We’ve lived here nearly 25 years now and this house holds many memories.  I’m glad that our parents were able to spend time here and share all those precious celebrations and family gatherings.  I remember the laughter of nieces and nephews playing inside and outside, and feel a deep joy that their children now come here too.  We still had some of their old toys and it’s such a pleasure to share them again.  Not yet is the house too big, not yet is it too hard to manage, not yet is our health too frail.  Not yet, please. Not for a long time yet.

However, I know that I don’t need all the house contains to be happy.   Twelve years ago, my partner and I learned how to be snails and take our home with us.  Our little camper van has taken us away from the city, out into the country, across the seas.  I sleep in it as well as I do at home, it’s familiar, everything has its place.  My sister gave me this lovely lavender bag, which says it all.

I cherish that “We”.   How lucky we are to have all those shared memories, both at home and on our travels, may there be many more to come.  

I turn on the living room light, and resolve to make the most of everything, right here right now.

The present is a present (another saying I saw somewhere, maybe in a card shop).