On "home"

"But one day we woke to disgrace; our house
a coldness of rooms, each one nursing
a thickening cyst of dust and gloom.
We had not been home in our hearts for months."

From Disgrace, by Carol Ann Duffy

As I return back to my room in my temporary Reading flatshare, having spent the weekend sleeping on the sofa in a friend's living room in London, and having had various conversations on the concept of "home," I find myself wondering what "home" means in my current semi-nomadic state. Having not long returned from six months away, I keep telling people that it's "good to be home." But do I mean Reading? London? The UK? Or something else entirely?

One friend of mine talked about putting down roots (metaphorically), planting trees (literally), that she can't see herself moving away from where she now lives. Her "home" has a clear sense of place, and room for others to share it but no single other person that makes it a home. For another friend, also currently semi-nomadic, home is "with the person you love." Yet for her, and for me, "the person you love" no longer has a reference. There is no longer one single person to whom that refers.

I think it was once true for me that home was with the person I loved. I clung to him as to a refuge, a port in the storm, a sense of safety that had been missing. It was a visceral, physical thing, this feeling of being safe in someone else's presence, in his arms. A breath released, a letting go of tension in the shoulders. And one day we woke to disgrace. We had a flat, but no longer a home. Bewilderment. Disorientation. Suddenly feeling once again a stranger in a hostile world, with nowhere that felt safe. Kind friends told me then that I had to create my own sense of safety, to carry it with me. I didn't know what that meant, or that such a thing could be done.

And yet sitting here in this temporary sanctuary I realise that some years later I do carry with me a sort of portable home, both in the sense of tangible items and memories that I take refuge in (sometimes perhaps a false refuge) and, increasingly, in the sense of having just enough comfort in myself to feel at home even in unfamiliar places. So where is "home" now?

Home is a room of my own, a private space where I can close the door on the world for a while.
Home is standing on stage with one of the choirs where I belong, where my voice, however fallible, both blends in and keeps its uniqueness.
Home is a particular spot by the lake in Regent's Park, watching the ducks.
Home is letting the door close behind me in the foyer of the Ismaili Centre in London, hearing the water trickle from the blue granite fountain, and those rare moments of sensing a Presence in the prayer hall... or anywhere...
Home is those precious email exchanges, phone and Skype calls with people I love, scattered all over the world.
Home is groups of fellow meditators and practitioners of Insight Dialogue, and the immediate and powerful feeling of safety and connection.
Home is not having to do or be anything other than just as I am in the moment, with those few people who accept whatever that is.
Home is standing on the earth, feeling it under my feet, breathing deep.