Am I home?

The telescoping nature of home

June 2nd, 2024

Dear Reader,

Is there a more powerful word than home? I’m sharing an earlier letter that I wrote on what is home, and who lives there.

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I am traveling next week. It is for less than a fortnight, but I will be traveling across the world. I am leaving home. But I’m also going home. And it doesn’t matter which direction I’m traveling in, which home I am leaving, because with both, I will leave chunks of my heart behind. So I dread these melancholic cusps, these times just before my departure, because l start to brood about the idea of home.

I have this one vivid memory from my childhood. I must’ve been about 6 or 7. I’m sitting on a comforter or a sheet on the floor with a small pile of books in front of me, and clutching a plastic doll. You can tell these are my prized possessions. I quickly grab another sheet and pull it over my head, almost unknowingly creating a cozy home within my home. You might have a similar memory of creating a private space under your bed, or setting up a tent or playhouse inside your room. It’s some small area with a makeshift roof and walls, where you can be with yourself and keep the world at bay, a smaller space within your room inside your house. Even as adults, we crave and create spaces within our homes. It might, ostensibly, be for work, art, play, or all of the above. But at its root, it functions as a place to withdraw and nourish ourselves. That’s when I realized there is a telescoping nature to the idea of home, like Russian matryoshka dolls, small sizes nesting inside the next big container (planet- continent or country- region/city- neighborhood- your home- your private space within your home).

Home is also defined by who lives in it and how they support one another. Home is a person or people. (The telescoping here is who belongs in your innermost circle-who’s in the next ring- and so on). Home is sacred space, one that’s defined by love shared by the people who live there. But what constitutes home in the absence of loved ones or a designated private space? Is it even possible? I guess I am asking, can I be my own home?

I was born in India, and my family lived in Mumbai (Bombay) until I was 9 years old. Days before my 10th birthday, my parents moved to the Persian Gulf region for my Dad’s job. I went back to India for college and later, I moved to the United States. I’ve called the US home for nearly thirty years. Home has always meant many people and places, and I am deeply grateful for that. With the exception of the pandemic years, I go back at least twice a year, and sometimes more. I should be used to coming and going. But when it comes time to leave either place, I still struggle deeply.

Can I be like a crab or tortoise, and carry my home with/within me?

When I think of what that would look like, my body softens. It’s a place where there’s always room for more love, more acceptance. When I look into the kitchen of this home, I see that both the Anxious part and the Harsh Taskmaster part are sitting at the table together. A nearly empty plate of cookies is in front of them. I try soothing the Anxious part of me the way I did with my boys when they were little. I love you. It’s going to be okay. I sit with the Harsh Taskmaster part of me and tell her the same because I know she’s secretly staying up nights and worrying about all the ways I’m not measuring up. I hold her hand until her grip loosens. When some small Doubting parts- they look like the Minions-waylay me outside the dining room and their leader presents me with a list of All That Can Go Wrong, I know they too are scared. I love you. I’m with you. We’ll do what we can. I walk further into the house and push open the bedroom door. Faint music is coming from behind a vivid, floral sheet that curtains a smallish space between the bed and the window. I push the sheet aside and marvel at this tiny home within a home. There are piles of books, novels, art books, and a few magazines. An open box of chocolates. An 80’s Walkman and a stack of cassettes. There is a young woman sitting in the center of the small space. She has headphones on and she’s busily cutting long scraps of color paper and they decorate the ground like confetti. She jumps up when she sees me.

“Have we left? I want to take my journal and my art supplies. Are we there yet? I can’t wait to see everybody. Also, can we take drawing lessons when we come back?”

Her enthusiasm is contagious. Thank you for coming with me, I whisper to her. I love you, she whispers back.

I’m going to go on this trip and I am going to hold this image in my mind, of taking my little family of disparate parts along with me, and I’ll let you know how that goes. This is one of those wonderful alchemical byproducts of writing- in writing, I can let go of some of my fears and reach for love.

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Dear Reader, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what home looks like for you.

Thank you for reading. I’ve been sharing some old favorites, but a new season of letters arrives next week, starting with the second part of the Goddess story.

Best,

Priya