What is home?
This inquiry has been at the heart of my experience since I sold my apartment and began to live a “home free” adventure.
It’s an interesting inquiry to live with, especially after over a decade working as a real estate broker. You might think it would be the centerpiece of any training offered in the real estate industry, but in all the conferences and events I’ve attended, I’ve never once seen this topic on the agenda.
What is home?
A shelter. A sanctuary. A safe space.
Home is where you come to escape the chaos of the world outside.
Home is where you come for security, stability, and support.
It’s the place where you plant and grow your roots, where you lay your foundation, where you learn the values and form the beliefs that forge your identity.
Home is where you nurture and nourish your life.
2020 has been an interesting year to contemplate this question. Home has arguably never been more important than it has been this year.
From the first shelter-in-place orders, to quarantine and isolation guidelines, to the cultural shift back to dining at home, to the shift to embrace working from home, home has been at the center of our pandemic experience.
Home is where we go to protect our health, to find security from the world of diseases, fires, and protests. It’s where we can feel free to express ourselves, to be who we are, to love and live our truth.
In 2020, many people have found renewed resonance with these attributes of home.
Home is a Privilege
And, in a year that has exposed so many aspects of our unrecognized privilege, it’s worth remembering that home, in the way described above, is a privilege.
The concept of “working from home” is a privilege, on two levels. First, not everyone has a job that they can do remotely. Second, not everyone has a home.
The concept of home as a place of refuge is also a privilege. Shelter-in-place orders reminded us that for many people, home is not a safe haven or a sanctuary, but a place of threats, trauma, and toxicity.
Inasmuch as home might be a place of healing, it might also be the place that made you sick in the first place.
To the extent that we may take for granted that the structures that we call home are supportive and nourishing, that is our unchecked privilege.
A Privilege Check
The Jewish holiday of Sukkot is an annual check on that privilege. For one week each year, Sukkot asks us to step outside the comfort of our houses and consider what home looks like when we are not so fortunate to have a house on solid ground.
Sukkot invites us to experience the vulnerability of living without a foundation of healing, the support of sturdy walls, or the shelter of a solid roof.
Ironically it’s through this experience that we come to a deeper understanding of what is home.
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