I see my six-year-old son Carlos yearning for a house that is “ours,” yet when we take vacations to visit family in Puerto Rico, Canada, or Connecticut I’ve noticed that he really doesn’t care if we go home at all. As he sat sifting the sand with his father on the warm Luquillo beach he told me he wanted to stay there forever. Then we gather our things and return to the daily grind of life in Morrisville, Vermont and he loses the relaxed attention of his parents to jobs, laundry, a snowed-in walkway.

I’ve come to realize from watching Carlos and with the settling of middle age that it isn’t “home” I yearn for as in a building, but rather the presence of family, unconditional love, and the sense that things are taken care of. Someone else will keep you safe. Home is the feeling you have when you are a child sleeping in the back seat of the car while your parents talk softly in the front seat. Half-asleep, half-awake, you smile, feeling comforted and content. You pretend to sleep as your father lifts you from the car and as he carries you to the house. You are sad that the moment has to end, that after a gentle good night kiss you will be left, once again, in your dark bedroom alone.

Perhaps I am misguided in my thinking that a lovely little cape with lots of windows will fulfill my quest for home. Perhaps I should work on restoring the feeling I got in that D.C. motel with my family around me. Perhaps home is not permanent, but rather something fleeting, like most precious things are.

Article Author: Ann Hagman Cardinal

Ann Hagman Cardinal is a freelance writer as well as the Marketing Director for Vermont Collge of Fine Arts. Her first novel, Sister Chicas--co-authored with two other Latina writers—was released in 2006 by NAL/Penguin Books. …

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