Tag Archives: Home

nature, Photography

To See and Appreciate

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The beauties of the world are there …

The beach near our home.

… for us to see and appreciate …

Dandelions – a big favourite – for our marmot community.

… if we choose.

Under a snowbell tree.

So many, many around the world …

A duckling among the lily pads – mom and dad were close by.

… would give almost anything …

Lovely orange poppies.

… to live as well as untold numbers of us fortunately do.

musings, nature, Photography

May 17’s Monday Marvellous

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I feel like publishing photos of home right now as I’m quite wistful for it.

Skaha Park with Skaha Lake through the trees. My home is close by.

Here in Northwest Territories, it has been a very long, long winter, literally, and although the record-breaking amount of snow we had has melted, the temperature hasn’t gone up much.

There’s been a lot of rain, too, and now there’s flooding in some areas.

With the addition of all the COVID anxieties and concerns, the last 15 months have been challenging.

I am looking forward to a break, at home, soon.

Happy Monday, happy week. 🙂

musings, nature, Photography

The North Atlantic

19 Comments

I grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean. Its profoundly salty tone and scent suffuses all aspects of life within and nearby with an overarching awareness of the primordial melting pot that connects all of us.

For me, this picture from photographer Vincenzo Mazza activated a strong sense of home, which is unusual as I’ve never felt much homesickness. I left “home” at a very young age and have spent the vast majority of my life in many other places. Home became more about my life’s people than about a place. But the ocean has a way of imbuing your blood, I think.

I have visited Iceland a number of times, and its ocean geography does remind me of “home.”

South Icelandic coast, a rugged and beautiful place.

Do you feel homesick from time to time?

Happy Friday. 🙂

musings, nature, Photography

Peachy Keen

26 Comments

The Okanagan Valley is quite famous for wine grapes, but for many years before that it was well-known for its fruits and vegetables, especially its tree fruits.

I am not usually a big lover of fruit, but there’s nothing quite like a fresh peach, warm from the sun, gently sweet and juicy, slightly tangy but not acidic. And that heavenly peachy perfume! Such a treat!

A bin of Okanagan peaches.

So as I sit on the equivalent of a massive glacier, I can always dream sweet summer memories of peaches. Mummm, I can almost taste one.

Do you have a favourite fruit?

Happy mid-week. 🍑

Commentary, musings, Photography

Where’s Home?

30 Comments

When you think of home, what do you think about?

Is it a town? A city? A building?

Is it being in the same place with your significant other?

Or is it a state of mind?

The melting ice of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories.

Do you have to leave it in order to recognise it? To know that it’s home and it’s where you belong?

I left “home” many years ago. So many places have now been “home” that I don’t really think of it any more as a place.

You can’t go home again. That is the title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe. In it, the idea of home is explored, but there are no definitive answers.

Once you leave home, does home become a construct? Is it an illusion? A sentiment? If what you experienced as home still exists, is it the same? Or was it ever what you thought it was?

I think of home as a place in my head. I don’t always recognise it, but I know it when I feel it. The land where I now spend my working life is a type of home, but I also know that it isn’t home.

Some people can’t wait to get back home. They will only leave it temporarily, if they do at all.

I couldn’t wait to leave home. I wanted nothing to do with it and got as far away from it as I could, both physically and emotionally. I had to find my own concept of home, and did so by exploring the homes of many others. I travelled a lot, both throughout Canada and the world.

And what I found was that the idea of home held a great number of commonalities across ethnicities, countries, religions and regions. It was often about a familiar group of people doing familiar things in an environment that, for the most part, held few surprises, even if there was a war going on. In fact, the notion of emphasising their familiarities was even more pronounced if there WAS a war going on.

So, maybe home is about expectations. We expect certain people to be doing certain things in certain ways in a certain environment. When all about us moves and changes, this idea of home provides a great deal of – well – certainty.

I once took a course that taught that expectations are inherently disappointing. That if you expect something, and then don’t get it as so often happens, you are causing a lot of trouble for yourself.

Maybe that’s why you can’t go home again. Expectations are never what they are in your head.

Now it’s your turn. What are your thoughts about home?