When is Home home?

On a Tuesday years ago, my family and I left Nevada, drove to Iowa, arrived on a Saturday. Although it was my first visit to the state, I started college that following Monday. During our cross country trip, we joked about the Midwest, the corn, pigs, farms, flat land; the typical joke one makes who has never lived in the Midwest or spent a significant amount of time here. Little did I know, I was on my way home.

“Aren’t you from Nevada?” Yes.

“Why would you want to live in Iowa?” Because it's beautiful.

“If I had the chance, I would leave.” Yeah, but you’d be back.

I have fielded these questions now for almost two decades. Once known as Jessica Montana from Nevada who lives in Iowa, I am now called an Iowan. I used to laugh at the former statement; in fact, take pride in having so many states in my salutation. As for the latter, I responded with an emphatic, “No! No I’m not!"

Though, now, I don’t know if I would object.

When is home home?

Last week, I went to lunch with two colleagues. While walking to one of our favorite restaurants, we spied a purple flower, perhaps considered a weed to most. Low to the ground, each flower was about two inches in diameter and a matching purple center. A colleague said, I think it's chicory. The three of us took a minute and collectively said, that's pretty. Huh? Interesting. A simple walk to a restaurant revealed beauty along a sidewalk.

Fast forward to later in the afternoon, a thunderstorm was rolling into downtown Des Moines. I checked the radar online; deep purples, bright reds, fiery oranges and yellows moved across the screen. Weather reports revealed the storm moving fast, west to east, with 70 mile per hour winds. In locations where it hit first, rain poured sideways.

A group of colleagues gathered near the windows to watch the storm move past our building. As we watched the gray anvil clouds move in, I said, “Gosh, it’s nice to see clouds.” A colleague responded, “Oh, that’s right. You’re from Nevada; you’re probably not used to clouds?” Immediately, another colleague answered for me, “Yeah, but she’s acclimated to Iowa by now.”

Josh Gates wrote, “Travel does not exist without home....If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.” See Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter.

The windows my colleagues and I stood in front of were my reflecting surface. Standing there, as if lightening struck in my brain...my home is simply the place I find beauty that fills my heart. It is not defined to the borders of a state...Montana, Nevada, or Iowa. It is not the length of employment, home ownership, number of years spent in one spot, friends, or bank accounts. And, I definitely hope it is not bright, shiny objects that catch my eye. Squirrel! Well, maybe some days it is. Yet, on most days, it is noticing the beauty of weeds decorate a sidewalk or thunder clouds swell over a downtown skyline. 

Maya Angelou wrote, “I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” 
Years ago, I moved to Iowa. Little did I know, I would find my home here. Once my family and I poked at the corn growing along I-80; however, now I revel in knowing that the neighborhood raccoons peel back the husk to check if the kernels are ripe for eating. Beautiful!

When is home home...for you?

You guessed it...it's Chicory!

Nibble. Nibble. Said the raccoons.

Other Favorites…

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin,Giovanni's Room

“Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend.” ― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

“She didn't belong anywhere and she never really belonged to anyone. And everyone else belonged somewhere and to someone. People thought she was too wonderful. But she only wanted to belong to someone. People always thought she was too wonderful to belong to them or that something too wonderful would hurt too much to lose. And that's why she liked him-- because he just thought she was crazy.”
― C. JoyBell C.

"She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said.
[...]
It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's