Sean McHale

Home is where the [...] is.

Defining and conceptualizing 'home' has kept me navel-gazing for years. First up for contemplation was recedence of the childhood-home concept; for me it stood enshrined, mentally, for many years—but one moves on—sets up their own camp(s), and in doing so begins to see the temporality of it, if they had not done so before. Naturally, next in line for contemplation was, "when does one of these camps become home?". Naively, it had seemed to me an inevitable process, called into place, nonsensically, by simply being.

These viewpoints are idle. They reek of passivity. My childhood-home and the culture around it was seldom brought into question; it had stood stable in the long run and was ingrained, in broad strokes, at a young age. The camp(s) I make mention of have an expectancy to flourish into home simply through being, which, of course, discounts effort and time required for the construct of 'home'. 

Everyone had their pandemic enlightenments, and mine was the healthy debasement of these viewpoints. The childhood home lives on in memory, with hauntings of both despair and joy.