At home in the world

(Nimue)

What does it take to feel at home? What kind of objects and resources do you need to feel that you are secure and comfortable? What gives you a sense of belonging?

Humans often express identity and self through objects. We surround ourselves not only with things we like, but often with things intended to express to other people something of who we are. Being able to express in this way is also a consequence of being safe. For too many people in the world, it isn’t safe to express identity – especially for queer folk.

‘Home’ has always been an important concept to me, and also often a difficult one. There are homes I have left that I did not want to leave. There have been times when I’ve gone with only some of my things and not known what I could reclaim. There were rounds of having to radically downsize and give up a lot of objects that had been companionable parts of my living space for years. As an animist I do invest consciously in the objects around me and in the sense of a home being a community.

I find it easier to feel at home when I own the place I’m living in. Renting makes me anxious. However, I’ve felt startlingly at home in holiday accommodation this year. My relationship with renting may have a lot to do with how powerful/powerless I feel in any given situation. As I work on feeling more powerful, the anxieties around where I’m living might well ease. 

Of course a home might not be one person surrounded by objects. For me, a home means plants, and people and also ideally cats. As soon as you consider living with other people, you undertake to be less secure. Where I’ve left places I was living that has on several occasions been about having to leave the people I was living with. When your security depends on your relationships, that isn’t always easy.

More than anything, I find that a home is an experience of belonging. That might have nothing to do with physical ownership. It might have nothing to do with objects in a space. It does have everything to do with relationships though – human and otherwise. The sense of belonging is a state of relationship for me. All kinds of things can give me that feeling of welcome and rootedness, but overall it’s been rarer in my life than I would have liked. 

I’m learning how to belong, how to take up space and what it is that makes me feel secure. I’m learning a lot about what a home is, and what it takes to make a good community of humans and others.