I *might* have mentioned this already, but I moved last week. Our new place is amazing. It’s quite weird not having things unpacked properly or knowing exactly where everything is, but it is already starting to feel like home. But then, I think I’m unusual in that I’m able to settle pretty quickly, wherever I happen to be. Sometimes even AirBnB flats I stay in for more that 2 nights start to feel like home!
Where do you consider home? Do you have a family house that you go back to on Sundays or for holidays, that you grew up in and know all the nooks and crannies of? Do you feel at home where your friends or partner are?
This piece from Freya really resonated with me the other week because, like her, I grew up kind of all over the place. When people ask me where I’m from, it’s a difficult question for me to answer, without some kind of elaborate answer.
In fact, I have two answers, depending on how much I actually want to get into conversation with whoever’s doing the asking. I remember when I worked in a call centre, when I was in my early twenties, and I used to get the ‘Where are you from!?’ question a lot from people on the phones – I’d generally go with the shorter version for them…
Answer one: I’m from New York. I have an American accent, there’s no getting away from that, so this usually generates the fewest follow up questions (generally of the ‘You lived in New York City and you moved to LONDON!?’ variety, to which the answer is always ‘Of course, because London is way better than New York for hundreds of reasons’).
Answer two: I’m from Trinidad, but I moved around a bit as a child. This usually leads to loads of follow-up questions: ‘You’re from Trinidad? But you’re not black!’ is one I used to get a lot, but don’t get so much anymore – maybe because more people are actually aware of it as a country now, maybe because they realise it’s kind of an obnoxious thing to ask! ‘Why don’t you have an accent?’ – because I left when I was 9 and moved to Mexico, where I developed the ‘International accent’ (AKA American), and then I moved to New York, which sealed the accent deal. This then gets followed up with questions about my parents (no, they didn’t work in the army), why I moved to England (my mother is English, and ‘home’ for her was always my grandmother’s house in Ealing, which I visited throughout my childhood), what Mexico was like, etc.
So, yes. I am from Trinidad, but only lived there until I was 9, so although it’s part of my identity, I wouldn’t call it home; I lived in Mexico, but only for 5 years, and always as an expat, and I’ve never been back, so that’s out; I moved to New York, and called that home for a bit, but since my parents moved to the UK, I feel absolutely no connection to that city, especially considering how much it has changed since I lived there. I went to uni in Norwich, which is a city that I love, but which never really felt like home.
So I guess the answer to ‘Where do you consider home’ is ‘wherever I and my family happen to be’, which right now is London. I haven’t lived here for that long (well, I guess ten years is a long time, although I can’t quite believe it!), but my parents live here, my husband lives here, my closest friends live here… it’s really ridiculous, but the expression ‘home is where the heart is’ is so true – the things that are closest to my heart are all here, therefore it’s become home.
Ha, so this has become a rather long answer to what should be a simple question. But home is a complicated thing for me. On the one hand, I kind of wish when asked I could just say ‘Slough’ or something, but on the other hand, it’s kind of awesome to have had such a fun and different upbringing.
Where do you consider home? Is it where you grew up? Where you live now? Somewhere you lived once upon a time? Somewhere you WANT to live (I’m thinking ‘spiritual home’ here)?