How do you define home?

I have made some friends since I moved here, really good people. Mostly I met them through work. These are good people. They make me laugh. They are the kind of people who call you just to say hey. People who will notice your absence, so that should something happen to you the CSIs won’t need to follow the flies to find your location. People that make a life far away from family bearable. Easier.

It is summer time and all my friends are getting ready for their exotic trips. The kind Don and I can never afford: in time (he doesn’t get a lot of time off) or money (don’t get me started on that!). Some are going to Vegas, others to Australia, others to the UK. Don and I will be going home.

When we are asked the question: Going anywhere the summer? Our answer is always home. And that answer confuses some: “You don’t want to go somewhere more exciting? Warm? A cruise?” and it also pisses some people off: “Home, what do you mean home? You have lived here since 1999! Why do you still call Newfoundland home?”

Why indeed.

I guess the answer lies in your definition of home.

For me, home is many things. My husband and son are the center of my sense of home to be sure- and wherever they are so is my home. But there is something more to my understanding of the word: something that has a very esoteric connection to the Island itself.

Home is the place where I can be myself. Where I am surrounded by family. Birch and Evergreens. Blue Spruce. My Poppy’s apple tree. It is time spent swimming in the Falls. Friends from high school. Memories. My room. My Grandparents’s laughter and homemade wine. Dad’s BBQ. The smell of Grandma’s house. The silence. Rock and bramble. The dark, dark nights, where the stars shine out in familiar bright patterns, constellations that mark my place in the universe.