Home

Where is home? Is it where we were born or lived as a child or is it where we end up? Is it a geographical place or a specific abode? Is it one place or can it be plural? Is what comes to each of our hearts when we say “that is home” always associated with the positive? Could you call something home if it were negative? What makes a location feel like home?

I left what I knew as home when I was 19. It was not the place I was born but the place I had lived as long as I was old enough to remember. The details of my leaving is another story, but my destination was Oklahoma where I subsequently spent the next 10 years. Having grown up on the Pacific Coast it was like moving to a foreign country. The land and culture was alien to me. Even after 10 years it never felt like home. I not only missed my family, I still missed ‘my country’.

I married a military officer and we spent many years traveling the world. It was exciting to experience so many new people and places. But as much as I enjoyed it none of the places we lived and traveled ever felt like home and I was always ready to move on. In my heart home was still where my childhood memories were created. Not a specific house – we lived in 4 different ones – but places like grandma’s and the beautiful wilderness that I was free to explore.

The Serengeti, Tanzania

Then one day, I traveled to Africa and something unexpected happened. The concept of home went deeper and wider than I ever imagined. I looked upon the great plains and woodlands, the high mountain ridges and the deep gorges of the Rift Valley that make up Tanzania and felt in my bones I was home. I don’t know where this strong feeling came from other than a deep primal knowing, buried in my DNA, that my roots were here. This feeling has never left me.

My concept of home has changed through the years. What is home to you? Has it changed as your life evolved? What is home?

Join me on the journey.

Becci Crowe   Adventure Artist