What is home?

I’ve heard some people respond to this question by saying, “Wherever the toothbrush is”.  I don’t see it that way though.  For me, home is where Lisa is.  And the dog.  It’s important that I list them in that order as Lisa reads this blog but I can’t neglect the dog.  Lisa and I in a hotel room is not home.  Throw in the dog, however, and it’s getting pretty close.  This makes it sound like the dog is more important than Paige which is mostly not true but Paige’s influence is diminished by the reality that someday, as her siblings have done, she will fly the coop.  But not Lisa.  Lisa = Home.  Why do I raise this now?  In August, we mark ten years of living here and when I mention this to people the first thing they say is usually, “When do you plan to move back”?  The unstated word they leave out is “home”.   As adults we’ve lived many places in the US but never once did someone ask me when I planned to return to Rhode Island or Lisa, to Miami.  But here people assume that we’re biding our time until we can move back “home”.   Our family, as defined by next generation up and next generation down, is extremely important to us but does not and could not define home.  With two daughters in San Diego, a son in Houston and parents in Rhode Island and Florida, we’re too spread out.  Visiting them wouldn’t be significantly easier if we lived stateside anyway.  Cheaper, certainly, but still requiring airports.  Fortunately, in addition to holidays, both Lisa and I have been able to tag on days to business trips so the opportunities to see family hasn’t been as infrequent as one might think.  The end result, in fact, is that we’ve seen our parents more often while living here than we did when living in Chicago, St. Louis, Kentucky or Pennsylvania.   It’s a matter of making it a priority.  So, if you want to ask us when we’re going to return home we’ll probably say we’re already home but that next week or next month or this fall, we’re going to San Diego or Florida or Houston or Rhode Island.  Because we don’t need to move to those places.  We just need to visit some people who happen to live there.