This is Home

Four walls enclose the space in which I took my first steps, spoke my first words, and learned to count to ten. It’s the green house at the end of the block on Graham Gardens Street in Toronto. This is the place I call home. Fast-forward five years to a new set of walls, holding new memories, in an unknown city, in a different province. I’ve been told that this is the place I am now meant to call home. Soon I know the memories of my old home will only be found deep within my subconscious. With the winter’s cold wrapping me in its embrace and neighbours that became family, it felt natural to transition my view of home from Toronto to Winnipeg. So, I started to lay my roots and quickly grew to find comfort and safety in this new home. Another 13 years later, I find myself in another new city, only hours away from the place I initially called home. This time, however, I left to go to university, meaning my family has not made the move with me. My brother stayed in Winnipeg for school, still living in our big blue house. My Dad, however, accepted a new job in Vancouver, leaving Winnipeg in his rear-view mirror, and causing my Mom to bounce between both cities. My family, my home and I are now scattered across the country, and my idea of what home should be is shattered.

Still, if I had to call a physical place home, it would have to be the house in Winnipeg. My small bedroom on the second floor will forever hold the memories of my growth. Yet, when my parents aren’t there and I’m miles away from the place I have been building my life, does home really lie within the walls of an almost empty house? At times, the loneliness of being apart from these familiar places and people seems unbearable. And yet, when we do return to the place we called home for so long, the suitcases we live out of can make us feel like a visitor in a once comfortable place. Maybe then, home isn’t confined to four walls and a set number of square feet. Maybe home isn’t a place at all. I have found home in countries where I knew no one, with people I was forced to know (but soon chose to love), at a school with thousands of people covered in tricolour, and within myself when there was no one else around. So, while I may refer to that address on my letters as home, I am coming to find that the meaning of this word lies in something much deeper.

By Emily McDonald | Photography by Kerenza Yuen