So, Where’s Home? I’ll Direct This Letter There

I was writng an email to a friend overseas about a discussion I’m having with my friend, Kenneth, about the whole idea of “home” in a world full of capital and labour mobility. My friend base and family base is getting very globalized. While most of my family is confined to the western region of Canada, a lot of my friends are ending up in Ottawa, London, Boston, New York, Zurich or Toronto.

If many of my friends are ending up all over the world, then where’s home? What postal code do you use if “Earth” is your address?

I was thinking that home is a set of relationships you hold dear. Mine is my family and close friends. I was born in North Vancouver, and went back there recently, and it felt like home in a lot of ways. I have roots in Vancouver, and a part of it pulls at something within the deep recesses of my memory. I only spent six years there, followed by a few family vacations. But when I went back there recently, it felt like home, mostly because of my cousins. They are my flesh and blood; we are cut from the same cloth, and therefore have shared identities, histories and stories.

My parents have a house in Red Deer, but it never felt like “home” to me, probably because we moved there as I was preparing to venture out into the world as a young pup. As awesome as parents can be, sometimes your need to assert your own identity and vision exceeds your need for their supervision and love. They’ll always be there (or so you think!). But that Red Deer place doesn’t feel like “home” even when it’s full of the ones I hold the closest. It’s more like a town hall, a meeting place.

When your friends move on in life, I think one’s sense of home changes. I have a friend who had his entire social network of buddies disappear with their new wives. Now that I’ve skipped town, he’s wondering where to go next, since good friends are always in such short supply in a busy place like Edmonton. But, he’ll manage. His life is evolving, he’s picking up new activities, meeting new people, and he has a little one on the way, which will undoubtedly shift his entire paradigm. He is one friend I hold as close as a brother because of his uncanny ability to remind me of who I was at some point in my existence. Whenever I’m around a close friend like this, I feel at home. I suppose having these “anchor friends” are essential to bulding a concept of home.

So, to build a sense of home, it’s like you have to meet and connect with as many people as possible, even if they don’t share your interests. I really, really miss fly fishing, camping and going on road trips, and that’s tough to do here (no car, no fishing buddies). But I can still have fun with people, even if we’re not doing something I’m particularly into. That’s what I’ve been learning down here - just do whatever it is that people do. The whole “when in Rome” adage is so true, no matter where you are. It might not be optimal fun, but it’s still fun, and sometimes you might even find some new things you like.

We’re all looking for a sense of belonging, and when we find it, we’re probably home. Usually home can be found wherever you find a group of like-minded people. I find searching for home in America is much more difficult than in Canada because of the individualized culture. It seems so many people live their lives inside their own heads, afraid to let others in. And I’ve pretty much given up on knocking, because when you do get “in” there’s not much there past the materialism, although there are a few exceptions.

The concept of “home” is simply a set of relationships that provide your soul with nutrients, the main nutrient being Love, of course. From there, it’s a set of friends you share a common interest, but those interests change as your priorities do, and your social network evolves as a result. For example, as a man closing in on 30, I’m just not into the weekend benders as much as I used to be, and have taken to activities like fly fishing instead. The people I spend my time with have shuffled around accordingly.

Stay tuned. I’m gonna share with you how I’ve learned to infiltrate a scene, make friends and set up a social group. It’s not that hard, really. You’re probably already doing it, but you may have not looked at it in this way before.