Home

            There are people who do not stay in one place for so long, and yet they still have a home. Some people never go too far from the town where they were born or the house they were raised, and yet they do not feel the sense of belonging toward their own houses and hometowns. Home can sometimes be a specific place where a person is born, raised, and sometimes dies. But home is also not necessarily linked to one place. Home can be referred to the physical structures or the state of mind. What's home then? Coming from Vietnam to United States and have stayed here for more than five years, I never thought of America as my home but only Vietnam as home. However, last summer, I came back to Vietnam for a visit, and I realized and that I was just a lost child there and that I lost my home. My friends, my relatives were still the same but they and I did not share the same circle of life, circle of friends anymore; the connection between us was somehow broken. I was just a guest there. But then flying back to America, and just when I stepped out of the airport and saw my parents waiting for me, I knew I was home. The people, the streets, even the weather feel familiar to me. Home is where the heart is connected to.

Home can be anywhere and any places as long as the connection between the place and the heart exists. In the novel Animal Dream, Codi Noline went from places to places and never found a place to call home, "… when I'd go again, swimming further out into life because I still had not found a rock to stand on." (8) Codi didn't settle her heart anywhere. There was no place which could give her the memories or the feeling that her heart could hold on to. On the other hand, some people often travel far away, stay no more than a few months at one place, and so home is necessarily linked to one place. Some people go to different countries, stay long or short, for them there is only one place to call home. Place which is linked to the heart, holds memories, and gives the sense of belonging is home. E.B. White in his essay "Once more to the Lake" finds back his childhood memories, the feeling of home, the sense of belongingh as he is coming back to the lake where he and his father used to go. "It seemed to me,…, that those times and those summers had been infinitely precious and worth saving. There had been jollity and peace and goodness" (301), the small corner of the garden where children used to hide in those childhood games, the river where family used to go on weekends, or even the old and long street in an overseas country where travelers set foot once, all hold precious memories and so they are home.

Home is where there are people you care for, and feel connected with. For example, in Animal Dream Codi described her relationship with Carlo – her boyfriend - after her sister left "Our home fell apart when she left." (10) Having a relationship that had no claim on each other, Carlo and Codi both loved Hallie and treated her as she was their center. Hallie left and their connection was broken and their home fell apart. Besides, Hallie and Codi had always been so close, so attached to each other ever since they were little. Growing up, leaving their hometown, they did it all together. All they had were each other.  To Codi, her sister had always been her home. Home was where she was with Hallie. Her sister was the gravity that kept her feet down on earth, and gave the sense of home. Once Hallie left, Codi had no home. Home is the sense of belonging, the comfort, the security that can be found in other people. People including family, friends, or even neighbors constitute home. The caring voice of mother, the warm hands of father, the smile of friends, or even the greeting of neighbors can remind people of home, and make them feel at home. For example, Codi at first did not found the comfort and the security in her father, or the connection between her and Grace people, and so she did not think that Grace was her home. But then as Codi understood her father more and got to know the Grace people better, her heart was connected with others and eventually she found a home in the Grace people's arms. People can go anywhere for as long as they want to, but if there are people who still wait for them and welcome them with opened hands, there will always be a home for them to return to. In the essay "Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit", Leslie Marmon Silko points out the value of family, "… her love and her acceptance of me as a small child were so important." (373). Even