Orangedale, a rural village on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where I spent the formative years of my childhood.
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Where is home?
Home (n): 1 a: the place where one lives; the fixed residence of a family or household.
Home is where the heart is, where you hang your hat, where you happen to be living at that particular time.
I’ve had so many homes in my lifetime, at least 24 of them. I currently live 6000 miles away from where I was born, and I’ve never stayed for very long in one place. Pondering this last night, I’ve come to realise that I’ve called the house I live in now home for the longest I’ve called anywhere home.
It’s coming up to be the same for my (ex)husband too. He’s of mixed Nordic and Middle Eastern descent and he too has moved around quite a bit in his lifetime.
What does that mean for our children?
When someone asks you where you are from, what do you say? My Canadian heritage only goes back a few generations – my Canadian relations were all immigrants from Scotland and England, but I was not born here in Scotland – I too am an immigrant.
It doesn’t matter where you live; immigrants tend to be frowned upon. Immigrants are told to go home, to return to where they came from. Where do you call home when you’re born on a military base in Canada and have never stayed in one place for very long?
Where would I return to?
Here in Shetland, there is a small (but vocal) faction that calls immigrants to these islands soothmoothers (said with a sneer) as we’ve arrived via the south mouth of the harbour.
Go home, we’re told, you’re not wanted here.
Orangedale
I could go back to Orangedale, a rural village on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where I spent the formative years of my childhood. For four years, I lived with my family in the flat above the hardware store pictured above, in the old Orangemen’s headquarters built over 100 years ago (by Canadian standards, that is ancient!).
That little window on the left-hand side (front) was my bedroom window. Each room in the flat (and there were quite a few!) was named after the colour of the walls. I remember a yellow room and a blue room.
The floor was squint so a marble placed on the floor would roll from one side of the house to the other.
There were bats in the loft and during the summer giant spiders would crawl up the walls.
The bathtub was cast iron and it had feet.
The house was heated by a wood stove. I remember my mother putting different coloured Christmas papers into the fire and us watching the different colours the flame would turn. My first experience with chemistry.
My brother and I used to sit on the forks of the forklift pictured above and get a drive around the yard (there were no health and safety considerations in the 80s!) and one summer I lounged on top of a large pile of lumber reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, soaking in the rays. We were allowed to do what we wanted to with the scrap lumber and, with this endless supply, I built tree house after tree house in the surrounding forests. Each one had a tyre swing. Nails were like gold and if I could borrow a hammer from a grown up it was the best thing ever. Mostly I made do with large rocks.
The smell of lumber and sawdust takes me right back to this place.
Scottish Referendum
There is a referendum coming up soon here in Scotland. There are two poll cards sitting on our kitchen counter top. We’re supposed to vote whether or not we want Scotland to stay part of the UK. I don’t know what to vote. I don’t even know if I should vote. I’ve moved around so much in my lifetime I have no idea if I’ll even stay here in Scotland to experience the results of the voting.
Wanderlust
I’m getting a wanderlust – I want to keep moving, but where to go?
I remember, as a child, the adults in Orangedale speaking with distaste about the foreigners coming over from Europe and buying up the cheap land.
If I moved back there with my family they’d be immigrants; unwanted; told to go home. I was raised to believe I did not belong in this village because I was not born there.
Where is home?
Grilled Veggie Lasagne with Wild Garlic Pesto
I haven’t moved around much at all but have traveled a lot. Interesting post. I love the pictures of Orangedale, I love the wooden houses. They are really unique
More and more recently I have been considering the world my home. The whole of it. Far more than I ever did before I was an immigrant. But I know, in my heart of hearts, home is Cornwall, where I grew up.
My husband is much the same as you. One of the questions in the last census I had to fill out was “what is your cultural identity” and my husband asked me to write down “citizen of the world” as he doesn’t identify with any single culture. It’s a funny old world we live in!
What a fascinating post, and your comment about it being ‘ancient by Canadian standards’ made me giggle! I can totally relate to your feelings being an immigrant myself but I think you’d find Canada has changed quite a lot, it’s so multi cultural now and as long as you are working or doing you bit for the community you get accepted straight away.
Thanks Lou 🙂 That’s a very good point you’ve made, about people and places changing. Saying that, you live in Ontario which in my mind has always been more open to incomers. That’s where my father’s family immigrated to from Scotland in the 50s.
Lately I have been very very down as I miss my family. I want to go home I kept telling myself. I have been here in the UK for 4 years and I just want to go back. Yet I know that when I go back its not the home that I left. They grew, change without me and I am no longer a part of it. Or maybe I am. I dont really know. I feel lost now and alone and I dont have nowhere to call home. #alphabetphoto
((Hugs)) Merlinda. I know what you mean. We all change, everything constantly changes and we need to adapt. Why don’t you go back anyway? I’m sure you’ll all adapt again – it’ll never be like it was but it might be something new and better. xx
I too have moved around so much (forces child), that I have no-where that I could go back to and count as being from. Even within the same country, there is an element of “not being from around here”. I don’t mind. I like the experiences that I have had and would not trade them for anything. I hope I add something to the current community, and the next one too. (All our floors are squint. Makes indoor skittles very interesting!)
I hope you decide to vote. You may move on but you still represent part of the population. Who knows, there may be another person from Canada arriving with no vote, making your vote even more important. Just a thought. #AlphabetPhoto
I too wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had for the world (ok, maybe I’d like to lighten some of the more dreadful ones, but all in all it’s been a hoot!) 🙂 I’m sure you contribute a lot to your local community; I try to do the same with mine. It’s all part of being human, I think. I’ve traded squint floors for squint walls. Makes hanging shelves very interesting. I still haven’t made my mind up about voting but your point has made me think. Thank you x
It is a difficult choice, isn’t it? We are lucky, being immigrants who came here without a life-threatening crisis pushing us. However, i too often feel the weight of the “sooth-moother” comment. It is oppressive and for me it certainly prevents completely open and free speech. Any criticism is immediately followed by a hint to go back home. One of the reasons why I’d love to live in cosmopolitan city…
You’re absolutely right Dominique. So lucky we are to have moved here by choice (although so many people ask me why!). You shouldn’t be prevented from free and open speech. No one is going to learn if we keep quiet. I think you’d struggle to fit your ponies in a flat in a cosmopolitan city 🙂
A really interesting post Elizabeth, I suspect there are a lot of people like you in the world my husband is one of them born ‘overseas’ and lived all over this country and other countries as a child. Sadly most of them are not welcome wherever they live but I think in communities where this is often the case the people there have never lived anywhere else so they cannot begin to understand that their words are pretty meaningless.
Home for me is wherever I live with my family.
Thanks….. what is your name?! 🙂 The world has certainly changed in the last few decades. We have the opportunity to move more than we used to, and the inclination, but it does come with a cost (and benefit). You’re right – home is where one lives with their family, where ever that may be. x