{"id":14,"date":"2024-02-06T04:58:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T04:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/?p=14"},"modified":"2024-02-06T05:01:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T05:01:03","slug":"14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/2024\/02\/06\/14\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the left side of the shelf connected to my desk is a wooden box with an icon of the Virgin Mary and her Child. This box was a gift from a friend I barely knew then and now consider almost a stranger. Yet, in the first month of college, he saw the homesickness I had desperately wanted to keep hidden. Maybe it was in my shaking voice as I had asked him if he was an Orthodox Christian. Or in my eyes which had turned glassy and wet. I remember how surprised I was at myself\u2013for being so emotional and about a faith that I had started to distance from. I was not devout and I hadn\u2019t been in years. But suddenly, in that dingy dorm that smelled like alcohol and dirty laundry, I was transported back to Sunday mornings in church with hymns in the background and the smell of woody incense and my mom beside me and the feeling of home. So fast and so intense was this feeling that it persists in my memory as clearly as I had first felt it. I am not sure if that same friend felt what I felt in that room on that night. But when he handed me the box, with the words \u201ckeep it\u201d as his only explanation\u2013I knew he understood. And I will forever be grateful not for the box but for the reassurance that came with it\u2013that it was okay to yearn for home. And eventually that it was okay to make a new home at Dickinson college.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say all this when I was asked to present an object that was meaningful to me on the first virtual exchange with my peers at The American University of Sharjah in the United Emirates. I think it would have been too much. It\u2019s too much now and yet I feel compelled to share. Perhaps it\u2019s because I suspect, like me, my peers gave polished meanings to their objects. I don\u2019t blame them. Or perhaps it\u2019s because it\u2019s eleven pm eastern time and inspiration has abandoned me. Or perhaps it\u2019s both. Or maybe it\u2019s neither.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0But however polished the answers were there was vulnerability and as a result, certain universal themes emerged from our conversation. A prominent one being that home doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be tied to geographical points on a map. It can instead be a feeling, a memory, a smell, a sound or a person. Where we call home can change but the ties that connect us to the feeling are strong and taut. For many of my peers the objects they had selected reminded them of their families. The people they associated with home.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Our initial vulnerability gave way to easy laughter. Questions and answers bounced around. Other similarities included our shared appreciation for our home countries and our cultures. Our concern for the politics in our regions and the wider world was also a major discussion point. Our shared grappling of our identities as young adults and our search for belonging was persistent and clear. Certain differences also emerged. Like the fact that my AUS peers\u00a0 didn\u2019t know what \u201cquad\u201d was in reference to a college campus. Or how the upcoming month of Ramadan would change their day to day lives. But no difference felt too different. I am excited to talk and read about my peers to see the nuances of who they are and how they live their lives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the left side of the shelf connected to my desk is a wooden box with an icon of the Virgin Mary and her Child. This box was a gift from a friend I barely knew then and now consider almost a stranger. Yet, in the first month of college, he saw the homesickness I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/tayee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}