This is my house in Seoul. When I moved into it with my friends, we pulled the whole kitchen apart, built a new one, repainted all the walls, bought and built new furniture, made a small kitchen garden in the terrace and added things to it slowly.
Over time, I'd come back home to this frame and it slowly started feeling like home to me. Would I call Seoul my home, then? I would.
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In an age where moving across the borders of your place of birth is the norm, most people have dual or multiple homes. We're all migrating for work, for family and for various other reasons. Seoul is the place where I built a home most recently. I also have homes in Chennai, Tours, Geneva and Mumbai.
Should the question then be what is home? What makes all of these places my home? Is it that feeling of coming home to family? Is it finding comfort in childhood memories? Is it slipping into your night socks? Is it finding your independence and living it? Is it the friends who go in and out of your home? Is it the smell of a cookies baking in the oven? Or whispers of parties that echoed late into mornings?
As James Baldwin rightly said,
“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
Steepshot
Assuming home is where the heart is and my heart is firmly in my chest. And my chest happens to roam around with me. So home is wherever I happen to be.
Q.E.D.
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True! Imagine having to leave your heart behind, ouf.
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Home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically, haha. Seriously though I agree that home is where the heart is. I've had my share of homes too, though not as spread out as yours. A significant difference between a house and home is also the people who inhabit them. I'm at home in my shack but I'm equally at home at all the other places too. Love that quote. Home is definitely as much a mentality as a physicality.
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I love this one! Home IS where the Wi-Fi connects automatically!
I remember my dad would come to pick me up at the airport and my phone would connect to his 4G car thing even before he arrived.
Yeah, the people definitely matter. That's what I'm going to speak about in my next post.
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I think Baldwin had it sort of right--home may be a condition we cannot revoke, but we can alter it. If this were not true, we would be prisoners of our past. I think our sense of home defines what we believe is essential about ourselves. I hope, for me, that has changed over the years. Home, for me, is not where I put down roots, but where I find family, love and comfort.
You do come up with the most interesting questions.
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So true. I don't think it's an irrevocable condition but just a condition.
Thanks, @agmoore. Where is home for you is a question I've asked hundreds of people for an exhibition and the answers are always interesting. Family, love and comfort are definitely popular, recurring themes. I think it's because of the human nature to feel a sense of belonging.
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