At different points over the past year I have felt slightly displaced. My being is attached to two places…two time zones. One place has a night sky that is filled with sparkling city lights, it is made up of unique streets and neighbourhoods, and it holds so many people from different places with different stories. The other place I love has a majestic blanket of stars that comes out each night, it has views that consist of rolling plains and snowy mountains, and it has people who know who I am. Both places are important to me, for it seems that while I have spent time cultivating a community in Toronto, my existing support system at home continues to capture my thoughts.
When I was on my flight to Calgary, just as we were beginning to descend, the gentleman sitting next to me asked where I was from and whether I was coming home of just visiting. I told him that I live in Toronto, but that I was coming home for a visit. He then asked, “Well then, what do you call Toronto?” In that moment I was caught in a realization. I always refer to my trip, whether traveling to Cremona or Toronto, as my journey home. When people ask about where I’m from I find myself weighing my relationship to place within the specific context, asking myself “where am I from in this moment?” When I am asked how long I have been in Toronto I can no longer say that I just moved from Alberta – the reality is that I have been here a year and my life is beginning to establish itself in this new place. In essence I have created a new home…but what does that mean to have two places that hold such meaning, will I ever feel content having one without the other?
Home is such an interesting idea…in some ways we are meant to understand it as a fixed and unmoving place. It is almost always directly attached to a specific location, for me this is especially true because my family has been in the same home since before I was born. That shifted when moved my life across the country, destabilizing my understanding of home. Slowly over the year I began to feel attached to my spaces and the people who created my community in Ontario. I began to understand home differently. There is the home in my life where my family is, where I grew up and where my roots are. However, there is also a home where my daily-life functions – a home where I find myself discovering favorite new places and meeting wonderful new people. I have created a home where my heart feels safe and present. Yet, in the same breath my heart and soul feels equally present and safe in the place where I grew up.
What I am learning is that home is fluid and perhaps more importantly, it is a feeling. It is a feeling that can be felt in more than one place, it is a feeling that can be felt with more than one person…it transcends the existing physical boundaries that exist within our world. My Grandma had a cross-stitch wall hanging that said, “Home is where the Heart is”…a sentiment that I had always assumed was just a given. However, as I spread my heart and my life between two different places, I begin to really understand the meaning behind that saying. Home is wherever your heart feels safe, loved and present. I feel blessed because my heart feels at home in many different places with many different people. I am able to go home…to either place…and know that I can be myself and belong.
1 comment:
That sounds so pretty! Chi-Miigwetch for sharing!
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