Home Soup

Tonight I talked with a friend about my new project that I mentioned in my last post - it explores the personal narratives and complex social and political issues around human migration and immigration. Obviously a very dense subject matter that I am trying to get my head around and find different pathways into. Currently I am thinking alot about home because it seems to me that for someone to immigrate or leave, one must have some place to leave from.That leaving is often exciting or an act of emerging, other times it is an act of regret or sadness. I would assume often it is both, and sometimes neither. Again tonight the question came up if home is even really a place, or instead a feeling or a sense of connections. Can anywhere be a home as long as I am surrounded by certain people? Possibly. Yet there are many people - I'm thinking of refugees - who are with their family but where they are is not home, nor even a home.

Right now I feel like I am searching for the right questions to ask about home. There are obvious ones - "define home.", "where do you consider home?", etc... - but I feel like there are more interesting questions that I will find as I continue. One came up tonight from my friend, "When you die, where would you like to be buried?", or "When you die, where would you like to be?". I think these are interesting questions because for some people their answers would very clearly point to where they consider home. For others, maybe not ("I want to die on top of Mount Everest..."). Just starting this process, but the juices are starting to groove - and it certainly helps to have good friends to get the mind jump started.