By Lum Pennington
Where, and what, exactly is home?
Like many people I have had a multitude of homes. “Home” has been a moving target, catapulting around the country driven by employment, curiosity and happenstance.
Destined by birth to have affection for New England’s many charming and unique attributes, I left home nonetheless. The region’s stark architecture, its winding, sun-dappled roads; these things feel right and familiar, along with ancient stonewalls running through mature forests that were once the open fields of homesteads, cider mills bustling with activity in the fall, the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen, and a favorite aunt who taught me to eat nasturtiums.
Memories make home.
Home has been in dense forests of wizened live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, buttressed by vast marshes surrounding the islands of Georgia’s coast, where it is not possible to see the limits of endless, empty beaches because of the curvature of the earth; where loggerhead turtles lay eggs beginning in May. After sever years at sea, the hatchlings return to the same beach — home — to spawn the next generation.
Wild places make home.
And then, after the solitude and isolation of island life, Washington, D.C. made me feel very, very small – like Alice in Wonderland. But the city soon became home, what was once strange became familiar, and people once strangers were friends. Later, in Florida, there were wild places and more good friends. “Like family” friends.
Even more compelling than blood or place of origin, friendships make home.
Then there are the trappings, not valuable but priceless; things made or owned by ancestors and friends, objects from nature. A child’s toy, a bit of needlework, a candlestick, a stone. Where these things rest is home.
Home is where you find it; “it” being a love of place and the splendor of its geography, flora and fauna; objects that have meaning, and the camaraderie of the people you find, love deeply, and will never lose.
During my first encounter with the mountain west I was struck by an unnerving sense of loneliness – smallness again, if you will. As we traveled a remote mountain pass, absent of any evidence of human existence – no cabin, no inviting encampment in the hills – the car radio played “Dust in the Wind.” To heighten this mood of desolation, it was also raining. I remember thinking, “we could fall right off this road and no one would ever know we were gone.” But now, six years into a wonderfully fulfilling life in central Colorado, the same mountains, reaching out and skyward, render not apprehension, but a familiar, welcoming embrace on returning from reluctant journeys away.
Home again.
Lum Pennington is a writer and designer who is most content at home wherever she finds it, as long as her man and her dog are there too.
