Homeward Bound

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Home has been on my mind, Dear Reader. Not my home, specifically, or any physical house for that matter, but rather the concept of Home. This simple word, one of the first ones we learn, has been haunting me, for hidden within its simplicity is a complexity that I fear I have yet to grasp. 

Months ago, one of my friends asked me about Home. With no malice or intent to stump me, she asked when one can claim a place as Home. Is Home measured in years? In  familiarity or comfort? Is it measured in fondness or perhaps even disdain? We debated this question for much longer than the average person would deem reasonable, and yet we were unable to come up with a solution. And since that day, Dear Reader, the ghost of this conversation has been my own personal poltergeist. 

If Home is measured in years, how many years must one invest? I lived in Minneapolis for four years, but I would never give it the title. And what of familiarity? Last night, I spent the evening driving around my hometown, and I realized many times that I was on streets I had never been on before. I bordered on being lost throughout the night, despite having lived in this town for a collective 21 years, so how could Home be measured in knowledge? Many people speak of a hatred of Home, and want to leave it their entire lives. During the three years I spent in Baton Rouge, I dreamed of nothing but leaving, but I cannot recall a single time I referred to it as Home.  

And what’s more, Home cannot be a choice. The place I was raised — the place I currently live — was never a conscious decision on my part. I was born in this town because it has a train line my mother could take to work. I was born in this county because both of my parents were born in this county. I was born in this state because all 4 of my grandparents were raised within these same borders. Home is not a choice, or if it is, it is a choice of predetermination, one that was handed down to me after generations of Midwestern lineage. 

Perhaps you think I am being dramatic, Dear Reader, and that I am taking this all too seriously, but allow me to defend my confusion with an anecdote. Years ago, my sister and I spent a summer weekend in Atlanta. I flew in from Minneapolis, while my sister had come in from Seattle, which she had moved to a few years before. While we were exploring the city, someone asked us where we were from, and I responded with Chicago without any hesitation. Simultaneously, however, my sister declared that I was from Minnesota and she was from Washington. This seemingly innocuous conversation stopped me in my tracks, and it still makes me sad to think about. Here was my sister, the person with whom I share all of my memories and who understands me more than anyone else, and she was claiming that we had different Homes. In her eyes, we were no longer linked by our shared geographical history, and the fact of our disparate lives broke my heart. I wanted to be able to correct her and prove to her that our Home was, in fact, still our shared childhood, but my inability to define Home left me powerless. 

And I must confess, Dear Reader, that Home is top of mind for me not only because of my recent debate on the topic, but because of my impending move to Omaha. After a year and a half of living in my childhood house, I am for the third time in my life uprooting myself and moving to a place where I know no one. Despite being no stranger to moving, this time I find myself stuck on a question I have never before grappled with: Am I leaving Home, or headed towards a new Home? Maybe it is because I am moving for a job for the first time, or maybe it is because of my age and status as a fully independent adult, but this move feels more significant than my others. It feels as though I am on the precipice of something, and perhaps this something is a new sense of Home. 

So now I must ask myself, am I ready for a new definition of Home? Do I have room in my heart for more than one Home or the strength to replace one with the other? I have a fear that if I were to redefine Home, some part of myself would be forever lost and irreparably damaged. I was wholly unprepared for my sister to change her sense of Home, so how could I ever be able to do the same? And if Home to me is one immovable pillar, how many times can I bear to leave it?

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Rest assured, I hear your question: What in the world does any of this have to do with Murder, She Wrote? Well, Dear Reader, this is one question I can definitively answer. As I often do when I am feeling sad, lost, or specifically searching for the comfort of Home, I turned to Jessica this week. And as she always does, Mrs. Fletcher had something to teach me. 

As I started season 7, I found myself particularly focused on JB’s devotion to Cabot Cove.

Multiple times throughout the series, characters of the week try to convince Jessica to leave Maine, be it because they are a suave silver fox trying to woo her or a cunning real estate agent looking to sell her house to weekenders. And yet, time after time, Jessica always refuses to leave. She is devoted to Cabot Cove and says she never plans to move. Jessica knows her home, and it is Coastal Maine. 

However, Jessica is often far from Home. She travels frequently, sometimes for work and sometimes to visit her inordinately large number of close friends and relatives. She finds joy and comfort no matter where she is, even if that place is crawling with criminals. Yes, Jessica’s Home is where she taught high school English. It is where she shared her life with her husband and where she took in Grady to raise him after his parents died. Her Home is where she writes her books, where her friends are, and where she solves a truly absurd amount of murders. But her physical house and hometown are not her entire life. Cabot Cove does not singularly define her or supply her with everything she needs. Her friendships, connections, and dreams go far beyond the town’s borders. And perhaps this is how I must consider my Home, as well.

My Home is still my sister, despite her annoying tendency to live thousands of miles away. My Home is probably a weird combination of Chicago, Minneapolis, and Baton Rouge, despite my odd and admiring feelings towards all three. My Home is my memories, my thoughts, my longings, and my regrets. My Home is Cabot Cove whenever I turn on my television and hit all of the correct buttons, and my Home is when I call my friends unannounced and they pick up the phone. My Home is both physical and abstract, and that means I can never truly leave it. I may be literally leaving my hometown and going to a new city, but my Home will come with me in the U-Haul, tucked between tables and chairs and certainly far too many tchotchkes. And, in time, I am hopeful that parts of Omaha will sneak their way into my definition.