Home Has No Bounds

Everyone seems obsessed with having a physical home to return to? As if having a place to show up to will make sure you get back to it every night. Why does it matter that you’ve been in the same place for ten years, sounds a little boring to me.

Home towns have always been interesting to me, in that they are foreign to me. I moved every two years for as long as I can remember. I saw new schools and new people and the only thing that was constant were the faces that I came home to every night. Six siblings, my mom, various animals, and a house we were often too many, to legally occupy. Despite the cramped shared space. We found ways to enjoy it. We found a way to not kill each other, even have fun with each other on a good day.

My hometown became the car rides between houses. Stuffing the car so full we definitely shouldn’t have been driving in it. The single nights we had to move from an apartment and find a new place. My friend’s homes, that were more familiar to me than my own house and the hesitation to unpack because surely we wouldn’t be here long. I saved tokens because they became part of my evermoving home and my comfort as I settled into each new place. Sometimes the apartments were smaller. We used one tiny room to store things and the master bedroom as a community bedroom. We smooshed all the beds into that room; a T.V. and had The Croods and the One Direction movie on replay. I can’t tell you what made those so comfortable other than the fact that being squashed into one room reminded us of the sleep pile in The Croods or being bussed across the country on a tour bus is probably even more cramps the room we shared. The Crocodile Hunter plays like a familiar song in the background of all my memories because even if we didn’t agree on everything we did agree on our love of animals and that may have been the only thing keeping us from killing each other.

The night was a common time for the crazy to take place. Night always made things more real. The stars so close, the moon so bright, the night was made for a family of dreamers.

I come from the night. From the people that I saw all the time instead of the place I maybe should have had to call home. Everything was exchangeable except for the people and the pets. We could be in the car driving towards uncertainty or unpacking to our new temporary roof. It didn’t matter where we were, because everywhere was home and I was from everywhere we had been.

The idea of a home is so important to people. The “true home” the forever search of a place to make your headquarters. Growing up where the only thing that was a constant familiar were the faces I called my family, home could not possibly be just one physical place. As cheesy as it is, my family became my home. Home will always be where the heart is and my heart is with my family.

I tell people this story and am often regarded with a bit of pity but I do not feel like it is deserving of pity. They were just adventures, they were laughs shared on bitterly cold Ohio nights and huddled in a house quickly filled with all our things. Because of this, I know I can travel far and wide and I can move and get lost in new and unfamiliar surroundings and I will always be home.

So I don’t have a place to call home and I don’t know if I like the idea of being tied down to one place but, wherever you call home remember to enjoy it.

Barbara Leigh Maya

May 1964-November 2020

R.I.P