Read more: Expanding Our Definition of Home

There is such a grounded simplicity to drinking coffee in a real cup. Not a to-go cup, or cardboard contraption. Glass. Ceramic. A tangible vessel for coffee that grounds you to a moment, a place, a memory. Something that says: You are here now, and that is enough. It is an act that brings us home. Drinking coffee from a cup is one of the simplest ways to ground, next to journaling or embedding your bare feet in deep in the grass on a crisp, summer morning before the heat comes out to play. It is one of the smallest things we can do we remind us who – and where – we are.

The simplest grounding acts are rooted in our homes. In what we bring to a space to make it ours. That doesn’t necessarily denote possessions or things, but presence. Purpose. It is the mug that lives a full life beneath your coffee pot, or the soft, long robe that waves from your bathroom wall. It is the plants that linger on the edge of your porch and rattle in the wind. All these things ground you by bringing you the presence of home. Underlying those tangible things, however, is the land you live on. The journey to that land is one of the hallmarks of defining exactly what a home is.  

For most of my youth, I fought to leave where I was born. Living in my hometown felt like trudging through quicksand: endless, fruitless, and irritating. I’ve told the Universe multiple times never to pull one of those tricky, full circle moments where I magically respawn – against all time, reason, and meaning – in Florida. I draw the line of visiting my “homeland” at occasional Disney trips.

My aversion to Florida was substantiated by a siren-like call to Washington, D.C. I remembered visiting in the summers and feeling the excitement, but it never really sunk in until July 2018. I remember standing near Chinatown, right across the corner from my hotel, and gazing down the path toward the Capitol. My mind whirled as I thought, with the intensity of wildfire: This is where I’m meant to be.

So, I moved. It took a few years, but in July 2021, I embarked on law school in the nation’s capitol. I quickly discovered new parts of myself I fell in love with physical activity, and hiking. I finished my first novel in the gothic-like, shady basement of an Alexandria, VA home. The more I ventured away from the sidewalks of DC and into the overgrown mountains of Virginia, the more something started to click. I was less in my head and in my body. My limbs drove me to move toward Leesburg where I savor the long, winding roads of a strangely well-kept countryside. I love my one-bedroom apartment with the shady balcony and the loyal Springer that lies at my feet. It is a simple life, and it is mine — home. But suddenly, that home has started that uncanny reaching of more. Of expansion.

Recently, I travelled to the Pacific Northwest to a little island off Seattle, Washington called Vashon. It was a tender adventure; awakening in so many ways, while sobering in others. I connected with land in a way I never had before. Everything just felt so… interconnected and rooted. Despite living by the ocean, Vashon’s air didn’t carry the salty brine of the sea. I walked on the sand while mountains loomed on either side of me, their frosted white tops glittering on the gritty coast of summer. A bald eagle soared overhead, its shrewd eyes on the sea while humanity thrummed around it. It was wild in a settled way. Humans seemed to live with the island, rather than just on it. As I traveled on the ferry from Vashon to Seattle at the end of my trip, I found my idea of home once again evolving. It wasn’t my head or my body leading me now, but something deeper. Something caught between the heart and the soul – the craving for expansion and the adventure of finding a new home that was tied to the land.

This is the moment where I make a confession: I am a history nut. Not in the “endlessly devouring non-fiction and can regurgitating a litany of facts” way, but in the “history and the present are inextricably woven” way. Since childhood, I’ve lived in old stories. Written old stories with old characters who relatably carry their scars and experiences across the centuries. In some ways, law school and living in D.C. put this part of me to sleep. Mainly because I didn’t have the time to devote to this part of myself. Now, however, it reawakens. Not slowly – purposefully. Intentionally. In that awakening arrives the idea of expanding to a new home.

My mind is immediately driven to the pioneers. While some traversed the country on the pains of possessing stolen land, others were fueled by the prospect of self-expansion. That there was somewhere – just on the horizon, over nearly unconquerable mountains – calling them to something greater. For many, that calling ended in cholera and dysentery. For others, it was a threadbare home built in the wilds of the unknown. Somewhere with skin-roasting summers and soul-freezing winters. But somewhere that was theirs. Somewhere cut from the land where a reciprocity was respected, rather than neglected.

Of course, the brutal, unfeeling semantics of colonialism kill most of the idealism behind expansion. But there remains a beauty in expansion. In the idea of saying “fuck it,” and choosing to conquer mountains, cross streams, and arrive in a place where your brain, body, and soul say: Oh, this is where I’m meant to be.

So, where does this leave us?

A home does not possess a linear definition, but it may well be defined in part by the journey we take to find it. Our body, mind, heart and soul must connect with a physical location to allow the small, tangible things to settle into place. To ground us. The feeling of a home evolves as our journey to find it does. Different locations may feel like home for a while as they help us develop our next move, or chapter.

As applied to me, there is a move in my future. I’m uncertain to where, or when. But there is this stirring within me. Not from dissatisfaction with my current home – which I love most ardently – but from the craving for expansion. There is a part of me reaching for somewhere new. Somewhere drastically different. The word “Montana” clings to my mind, bound by a deep fascination with western culture and history. It is a murky intention; half-finished and solemn. Practicalities tilt their head in skepticism. But we persist on the journey to finding a home.

Perhaps, at the end of it, homes can be temporary. Sometimes they hold you as you grow in your new home. Mind, body, heart, and soul – each home helps us discover a part of this until, finally, we find ourselves on a land – in a place – that is divinely interlaced with our fate.

Happy travels,

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