Your exploration of home's multifaceted nature is something I identify with, particularly as someone who has struggled to define what 'home' means to me.
I appreciate how you've woven together both the tangible and intangible aspects - from physical design to emotional connection. This gives me some new areas of thought to explore.
The quote about home being 'where I find comfort in solitude and joy in the community' especially struck me. It captures that delicate balance between personal space and shared experience, but it also feels like it’s lacking in my life...and perhaps one reason I struggle with defining the concept of home.
Your article reminds me that perhaps the challenge of defining home isn't a shortcoming but an acknowledgment of its complex and evolving nature. Thank you for facilitating this thoughtful dialogue about something so fundamental yet so personal.
Your words highlight the complexity of this concept, Jack. The noun 'home' sounds as if it's a physical setting that is both easily established and highly desirable yet this is not always the case. Everything we tend to imagine about home has two sides, the positive and the negative. I find it a fascinating subject and feel very blessed that I, myself, have always been able to enjoy places I can call home no matter how modest.
I lived in the UK my entire life until 2 years ago when the nest emptied and my husband and I decided to do the one thing we’d always promised ourselves: live somewhere in Europe. Portugal called so here we are, yet we still find ourselves doing that distinction dance between ‘home’ (here) and ‘home home’ (the place we lived, worked and brought our kids up in in England). We feel at home here - Anne sums it up beautifully: ‘home is intimacy and connection with the details and rhythms of a place, an accumulation of lived experience and relationships.’ It’s the rhythms. And the way daily routines in this new place etch themselves into your skin. The relationships are the hardest bit, though. Nothing replaces the close family and friends you’ve travelled your life with.
Thank you for this intriguing snap-shot of your life, Michelle. I wish you well in your new 'home from home'. And you are right, the relationships you build are so important it's difficult to recreate them in a new place. Over time though....
My parents also left their respective countries in the wake of WW2 to settle in the UK, where I was born and raised. I stayed there for a while, though travelled and lived abroad for a good part of my working life. Perhaps home is a state of mind only, and a time-dependent one at that.
Hi Ben. Thanks for your comment, and I agree; home is a state of mind. I think it can coexist with home as physical entity also. Do you feel a dual connection to home where you live in Hong Kong, and home where you grew up in Nottingham?
I do feel a connection with Nottingham though it might not be too strong, perhaps it's based more on nostalgia having grown up there more than anything else. I do seem to have a stronger sense of belonging here in Hong Kong, which is strange in view of geographical and cultural differences !
Your exploration of home's multifaceted nature is something I identify with, particularly as someone who has struggled to define what 'home' means to me.
I appreciate how you've woven together both the tangible and intangible aspects - from physical design to emotional connection. This gives me some new areas of thought to explore.
The quote about home being 'where I find comfort in solitude and joy in the community' especially struck me. It captures that delicate balance between personal space and shared experience, but it also feels like it’s lacking in my life...and perhaps one reason I struggle with defining the concept of home.
Your article reminds me that perhaps the challenge of defining home isn't a shortcoming but an acknowledgment of its complex and evolving nature. Thank you for facilitating this thoughtful dialogue about something so fundamental yet so personal.
Your words highlight the complexity of this concept, Jack. The noun 'home' sounds as if it's a physical setting that is both easily established and highly desirable yet this is not always the case. Everything we tend to imagine about home has two sides, the positive and the negative. I find it a fascinating subject and feel very blessed that I, myself, have always been able to enjoy places I can call home no matter how modest.
I lived in the UK my entire life until 2 years ago when the nest emptied and my husband and I decided to do the one thing we’d always promised ourselves: live somewhere in Europe. Portugal called so here we are, yet we still find ourselves doing that distinction dance between ‘home’ (here) and ‘home home’ (the place we lived, worked and brought our kids up in in England). We feel at home here - Anne sums it up beautifully: ‘home is intimacy and connection with the details and rhythms of a place, an accumulation of lived experience and relationships.’ It’s the rhythms. And the way daily routines in this new place etch themselves into your skin. The relationships are the hardest bit, though. Nothing replaces the close family and friends you’ve travelled your life with.
Thank you for this intriguing snap-shot of your life, Michelle. I wish you well in your new 'home from home'. And you are right, the relationships you build are so important it's difficult to recreate them in a new place. Over time though....
My parents also left their respective countries in the wake of WW2 to settle in the UK, where I was born and raised. I stayed there for a while, though travelled and lived abroad for a good part of my working life. Perhaps home is a state of mind only, and a time-dependent one at that.
Hi Ben. Thanks for your comment, and I agree; home is a state of mind. I think it can coexist with home as physical entity also. Do you feel a dual connection to home where you live in Hong Kong, and home where you grew up in Nottingham?
I do feel a connection with Nottingham though it might not be too strong, perhaps it's based more on nostalgia having grown up there more than anything else. I do seem to have a stronger sense of belonging here in Hong Kong, which is strange in view of geographical and cultural differences !