Home
Home is not exactly a “small” thing, but it is the backdrop to this series and the backbone of my photography business, so it’s worth reflecting on.
Like most of my weekly themes, the thoughts come to me during a 2:00 a.m. nursing session. By morning, I’m at my computer trying to piece them back together. I really should keep a notebook by my bed.
This image is a simple collage I made after leaving the first home I lived in alone. It hangs by my computer now, a way to remember that place and that season of my life.
I built it from photos that felt most representative. The house as seen from the field behind it, where I wandered almost daily- looking for arrowheads, broken pottery, and bits of trash worn down by farm machinery (that I would later use to make wind chimes). I cropped the photo so that the tractor tracks in the field appear to lead toward the large, beautiful burr oak that stands in the front yard, ablaze with fall color.
I cut into strips a photo of tree branches along the Blanchard River, reflecting in the water. I walked alongside it every day for a year; one mile to the nature preserve and back. It’s where I rekindled my love for nature, practiced photography, and spent a lot of time reflecting on who I was and where I was headed.
On the walk back, I would sometimes stop and look at my house, trying to store it somewhere deeper than memory, knowing I wouldn’t always live there. I knew that one day I’d look back on it fondly from a completely different life.
The last photo is the silhouette of a moth on my living room window at sunset, also cut into strips and woven throughout the composition. I remember relating to it: alone, with potential, capable of going elsewhere.
I’ve lived in four homes now, and each one holds countless memories that have shaped me. My childhood home, with woods behind it, fostered my love for the outdoors. The house along the river is where I started to find myself. The home I moved into with my husband in town is where our relationship grew, where I took the most photos to date, and where our son was born. And now our home in the country, with open views of the sunrise and sunset, is where our daughter was born.
Each holds its own chapter. Home isn’t as fixed as we tend to think. It changes as we do, shaped by the people we’re with and the life happening inside it. Even classrooms, workplaces, and other spaces we return to regularly can carry a feeling of home.
“Home is where the heart is” sounds cliché, but I’ve found it to be true. Where we are matters less than who we’re with. The grass is greenest under my feet.
I’m grateful for every place that’s been mine, and for this small corner of the world I get to call home for now- knowing it’s not the final one.
