Defining Home

Our first home in Qatar

Home. It's a very simple word but not always a simple concept. Consider young adults living in dorm at university, expatriates fitting into a world foreign to all they know, adopted and fostered children learning to feel safe and comfortable in their new surroundings, and the impoverished seeking shelter and privacy wherever they can find it.

Since I moved out of my parents' place in 2007, my answer to the question "Where's home for you?" has always started with a deep breath and a "Wellll...". 

There are many possible definitions of home. Mine has always had something to do with stuff. At least the stuff I deemed important enough to take with me when I left one location for another. I know, deep, right? For many years I'd spend the school year in one city/province/country and the summer in another. But home was always where I returned to at the end of vacation - the place that housed my bed, my cutlery, my towels...my stuff.

Right now we're preparing for another major move. We're about to set up our home, once again, in a city we're unfamiliar with. We will live in a building we can't visualize yet. We will have neighbours whose names we can't even guess. But it will become home as soon as we move in our stuff and start living there.

We're spending a lot of time thinking about what stuff we want to take with us across the world. It makes me think a lot about the value of stuff in general and my relationship to it. I try to resist the consumerist tendency built into everyone who grew up with my cultural and socioeconomic background. I fail, but I try. Even so (or maybe because of this), I'm having a hard time deciding what to keep and what to let go of; what is necessary, what is helpful and what is superfluous; what can be replaced, what can be eliminated and what will be missed if it doesn't make it into one of our suitcases.

What is really happening is that this process is giving me a reason to consider my relationship to stuff and my motivations for having it. My stuff makes me comfortable. It makes me feel safe. It gives me a sense of control. It makes my life easier. It provides opportunity to pursue knowledge, health and joy instead of basic necessities. Some of this is wonderful. I am blessed to be among those who don't worry about where their next meal will come from. But I can't help but think that some of this is a bit of a curse. Would I be a different/better/wiser/deeper/more compassionate person if I had a little less comfort/safety/control? Or would I simply feel less guilty when I think about others in need?

I'm not interested in displaying my affluence or accumulating trophies. I don't mind using chipped plates, yellowed pillow cases, fraying rugs, dented vehicles, doorless closets or ripped shower curtains. I am, however, very much concerned with being comfortable. I want air conditioning and hot water, sheets with a high thread count and towels that are soft. I want a high-powered blender and an efficient food dehydrator, special jars for culturing food and cold, clean drinking water. Maybe this is human nature. Maybe it's a healthy balance. Maybe it's full on materialism. I don't know.


Our last home in Qatar

I'm not saying there is necessarily anything wrong with wanting a good blender to make healthful smoothies for my family. Neither am I saying that someone else's life would necessarily be better if I had a dehydrator of lesser value. I'm just trying to put some of my thoughts into words. For the time being I will let the ideas of inequity, comfort, responsibility, luck, entitlement, consumerism, compassion, generosity, and stewardship swirl around in my head. And let the discomfort of these thoughts play a role in our decisions as we say goodbye to this home and build a new one.