When I imagine home unconsciously–the image that occurs as I wake from a dream, my thoughts as I idly drift from daily life into reverie–I see the house where my family moved in 1976. My parents still live there, so my childhood memories are regularly reinforced by my adult experiences, and I can almost feel the cool of the living room as my mind travels from the bright porch to the inside; as I wake from sleep, I’m momentarily confused that the light is coming from my right and not from my feet, where the window was in relation to my childhood bed. I’ve lived in my current home for nearly 10 years, but it still does not have the powerful pull on my imagination that 21032 Birchwood, in Farmington, Michigan, has.
Rather, when I think of “home” now, I often think in terms of community. This weekend I walked to the Decatur Arts Festival on the downtown square, and I experienced two of the things that make Decatur feel like home to me:
free live music and friendly neighbors. Live music always brings out crowds, and we regularly see friends and neighbors on their way downtown to listen to a free show. (Decatur offers regular outdoor concerts most months of the year.) The image, which shows the A. J. Ghent Band performing, is from the beginning of band’s set; by the time they played their penultimate song (a brilliant cover of “Purple Rain”), the entire sidewalk was full of people dancing.
Another major element of my community is my neighborhood: the 1910s houses are close together and feature the wide front porches common in the age before air conditioning. In the spring and fall (summer tends to be too hot, winter too cold), most folks live a lot of their lives outside where they can see and interact with people walking by.
I regularly sit on the porch with my dog Maggie: I am usually reading or writing or grading; Maggie is generally chewing on a bone or just watching people (and their dogs) go by. We live just down the street from a middle school, so we get a lot of foot traffic in the afternoons as class lets out. In the evenings, the dog walkers are out. We greet everyone (Maggie occasionally greets too loudly) and feel at home, like this is where we belong.
I’m not entirely public-spirited, however. My back yard is a personal/private space, where I see only those who I have invited there.
But it’s also the most public of my private spaces–where I’ll set up tables for a big party, or where neighbor kids will come looking for toys that have sailed over the fence, or where I’ll chat with people coming and going in the houses around me. Last week, though, as we were having dinner outside, a man burst through the side gate–and immediately jumped back as Maggie bounded toward him. It was just the termite inspector, coming to check the bait boxes for activity, so we invited him in (and felt slightly self-conscious enjoying our meal while he was still working). It was a reminder that the yard is both a public and a private space.
Thinking about this blog post, I’m realizing that “home” to me is less about specific structures or furniture or even places than about feeling “at home”–at ease, in a congenial milieu, doing things I enjoy. I may or may not know the people I see, but I feel that I belong.
free live music and friendly neighbors. Live music always brings out crowds, and we regularly see friends and neighbors on their way downtown to listen to a free show. (Decatur offers regular outdoor concerts most months of the year.) The image, which shows the A. J. Ghent Band performing, is from the beginning of band’s set; by the time they played their penultimate song (a brilliant cover of “Purple Rain”), the entire sidewalk was full of people dancing.
