Home. Do we have any, anymore? Do we care? by SIGNYM

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Home. Do we have any, anymore? Do we care?

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Saturday, August 8, 2015 13:05
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VIEWED: 3296
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Monday, July 20, 2015 12:23 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

My dad, who grew up on a family farm in pre-WWII Poland, had an almost mystical view of "home". "Home" was very important to him, and despite the fact that he was torn away many times from the various places where he lived, he re-established "home" in the USA.

I must have learned that from him. "Home" is important to me, too. I know what the neighborhood treeline looks like, the squeak of really cold snow, the hot humid summers, friends and family ... Unfortunately, for many years I've not been able to feel like I have a home, living as I've done in various rootless and disconnected Los Angeles suburbs where neighbors rarely see each other, and everyone is moving all of the time.

Do we HAVE homes any more? Are there any places where we feel "at home"- connected to surroundings, neighbors, history, or family? Or are we residing in a series of apartments, or owning a series of real-estate purchases? Does it matter anymore? Or is home just an old-style construct, done away with by our inet friends and families?

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Monday, July 20, 2015 1:32 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

THAT'S a tirade?

You Canadians sure are polite!

No problems, I feel what you're saying. I wish I had a home too.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, July 20, 2015 1:40 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I never felt welcome at home, so I didn't think I had the sense of home, because I didn't have the feeling of belonging. But when I go back, the familiarity of the place itself puts me at ease in a way I don't find elsewhere, no matter how much I try to make the places I've been 'home'. So 'home' for me is a specific, familiar location. But I admit, it would feel empty and hollow without my siblings.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Monday, July 20, 2015 1:52 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Brenda I'm sorry things are tough for you at the moment. I hope things get better for you soon.

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Monday, July 20, 2015 9:17 PM

DEVERSE

Hey, Ive been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity.

Home is where you hang your head.

My Dad was military and I lived in 7 different places by the time I was 15. Then I joined the military and lived in 6 different places in 15 years. Thinking it over, home was where my Dad was (Mom died when I was 14) for quite some time. It was the place I went for those special times; Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.
I suppose that changed once my children got to the age of leaving home and then home became where I am (my Dad died a while back) because we seem to gather at my house for those occasions.

I would have to agree and say that home is where you feel connected, emotionally and physically, and it is one's refuge. I suppose that there are those who have no need of a home and simply having a place to hang their clothes and sleep is adequate for them. Its a matter of personal preference and situation, but I would think that everyone needs a home at points of time in their life.

Oh let the sun beat down upon my face;
With stars to fill my dream;
I am a traveler of both time and space;
To be where I have been

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Saturday, July 25, 2015 4:15 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

I think I feel at home here. At FFF.net.
I think of home as my grandparent's place, which is no longer in our family. I never resided there, for more than a couple weeks of vacation.
My dad created so much stress that I don't feel like home at my childhood home, which is where my mother has lived for my entire life.
Most times, a house requires work. Is it the work that you put into it that makes you enjoy the place?

Exporting all our manufacturing jobs has made the stable community less common, more people need to move for business, or to get a job, or keep a job. Farming communities were full of homes. Have apartments ever been?

Sometimes I think home is where the bed is that you feel comfy in.
Visiting home is where the family is.

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Saturday, August 1, 2015 10:12 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

A very exestential question, Sigs...

I was just speaking to one of my professors about my House. It's a paid-for-House. It's not a Home. It's a shackle I'm now tied to. A ball and chain.

I don't only resent my House for the financial input I've given, or being able to coast in life without a mortgage because of it, but I hate that I've allowed myself to become dependent on living "HERE" because as long as I live within my own PRISON here, I can live off of virtually nothing compared to anyone with a rent or mortgage, which is like 99% of everyone else.

I went into this thinking that I would not be a slave to anyone when I owned my own livable house free and clear alone... a 31 year old bachleor....

I had no idea that 4 years later I would have become complacent enough where I'm virtually a slave to the house, making just nearly enough to sustain it.

It's August freaking 1st and I've barely made over 4,000 USD this year, before taxes.... No Joke....

Don't buy a house if it's only going to be a house.

I house can never be more if there isn't a Family in it.

Nobody is a Family of One.

I miss living in a Home.

I wouldn't leave this house to my bros. I'd order the lawyer to sell it and distribute the earnings.

There's been some bad mojo in this house. I'm not an occult freak, but a family who lived here for 30 years' father died in the garage of a heart attack within the last 10 years. The previous owners' marriage fell apart while living here. (I know a ton of gossip on old neighbors, which is awesome because they know virtually noting about me and because I've never been convicted of anything they can't even find anything about me online aside from a few parking tickets).

My house isn't Haunted, per-say........

Well.... it might be...

Maybe it just got bored of trying to talk to me when I wasn't listening...

Kinda would have pissed me off if I couldn't hear those Atari 2600 Donkey Kong sound effects over the noise too....
Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, August 2, 2015 11:45 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I think of home as my grandparent's place, which is no longer in our family.

Ditto. Vacationing at grandma's house was like really being home.

Quote:
My dad created so much stress that I don't feel like home at my childhood home

Feel ya there, too, only in my case it was my mom.

Quote:
I was just speaking to one of my professors about my House. It's a paid-for-House. It's not a Home. It's a shackle I'm now tied to. A ball and chain.

Yup.

Quote:
I suppose that changed once my children got to the age of leaving home and then home became where I am (my Dad died a while back) because we seem to gather at my house for those occasions.

Good for you. You seem to have made a home, if not for yourself, then for others. Hopefully, for you too.

Quote:
I can honestly say that home to me has come to mean more than a place, it has come to mean people that I actually care about. Blair and the friends that I made in Alberta were home. BC isn't home for me anymore.

Hugs.

Quote:
I never felt welcome at home, so I didn't think I had the sense of home, because I didn't have the feeling of belonging. But when I go back, the familiarity of the place itself puts me at ease in a way I don't find elsewhere, no matter how much I try to make the places I've been 'home'. So 'home' for me is a specific, familiar location. But I admit, it would feel empty and hollow without my siblings.

I'm pretty place-sensitive too. It took me YEARS to accept the southern CA landscape and weather, and - even now- I still don't like it.

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I wish everybody had a home, a refuge, a place where they feel secure, a place they and their neighbors would come together for. But I don't think there's any place safe anymore. Even if you're not (terribly) threatened by crime in your neighborhood, do you feel like your neighbors have your back? Do you feel like your job is safe? Do you think you have any agency where you live?

I know I'm an adult, I'm not supposed to be pining for a child-like situation. It's MY job to make a "home", and I suppose (or least I hope) for our disabled daughter we've managed to do that. But when I look in the future, when hubby and I are no longer alive, I see no "home" for her. I wish I could feel like I had some support, some community for us, and especially for her future.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, August 2, 2015 5:59 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Do we HAVE homes any more? Are there any places where we feel "at home"- connected to surroundings, neighbors, history, or family? Or are we residing in a series of apartments, or owning a series of real-estate purchases? Does it matter anymore? Or is home just an old-style construct, done away with by our inet friends and families?

I would have said a few years ago that home is just being with my family, but relationships change, don't they? We've been rocked by many things over the past few years, death and divorce, relocation of key family and friends, a drift of people who seem to be turning away. It's been a hard few years, but not on the scale that you have spoken about Brenda. It has made me feel like anything is possible, that it's easier to be cut adrift, to be without a 'home', than I ever imagined.

The place that felt most like home to me, the family beach house that I had been spending holidays, family gatherings, summers since I was a child has just been sold. That one was hard, it felt like a last main connection with my parents has been severed.

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Sunday, August 2, 2015 7:27 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Magon's

My grandmother was a wonderful grandmother and I loved her dearly. Her home was a block from our gradeschool, so we went there every schoolday for lunch. But as a mother I guess she was demanding and critical.

When she passed away all of her grandchildren cried openly - men and women both. Her surviving children, OTOH - well, they were EXTREMELY composed.

Anyway, none of her children were interested in the house or most of the belongings. So there went all the things I remember from my childhood - the green sofa, with the curved arms and very precise pleats, the Victrola, the dining table where there were so many Christmases and Easters, the sideboard, the humidor, the chest of drawers, the tall bed that, as a kid, I remember having to climb my way up on it. And there went the house soon after.

I still live on the other side of the country. About a year after that I had reason to go back where I grew up, and I thought - well gosh, I have a few hours, I'll drive by where grandma used to live.

The oddest thing ... as I caught sight of it tears started running down my cheeks and off my chin. It was a visceral loss, not just of my grandmother but of my home.

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Sunday, August 2, 2015 8:09 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

My Grandmother was the same. A better relationship with her grandkids than her children. A wonderful woman in many ways, but difficult, but then she was ahead of her time. She exuded restelessness and discontent. Her world was too small for her and she longed to break out of it. Alas, she lived in the wrong time and was limited in what she could do. I often wonder what she would have done if she had been born 70 years later.

She lived in the Bush for most of her life. A spot of a place near and old gold mining town in the middle of nowhere. I still holiday there. It's where she and my poppy are buried, and where I have lovely early memories. Its not exactly home, but I feel connected to that place because I know my ancestors lived around there.

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Monday, August 3, 2015 11:14 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

BRENDA- the limits of the internet. I wish I could give you something other than a virtual hug.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, August 8, 2015 4:22 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Me too, Brenda. I wish you a big wave of luck....

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