Expat Lifestyle: Home Sweet – Where Is Home?

By Doreen Cumberford

When you walk through the cobblestone streets of San Miguel de Allende, past vibrant bougainvillea cascading over lumpy stone walls, do you sometimes wonder: "Is this home now?"

Perhaps your mind drifts to different place—to children or grandchildren thousands of miles north, to familiar neighborhoods where you once knew every nook and cranny or to the unmistakable rhythms of a life left behind. The question of home for expats is the topic of hundreds of books, blueprints and blogs.  We expats can mostly exist in a curious space - not quite tourists, yet never quite locals. It seems there are so many questions about the subject of home. Is it a place? Or is it a feeling? Is it something we carry with us? Is it somewhere we left behind?

Undoubtedly there are more questions. So where, and what exactly, is home for you?

"Home is where the heart is," sounds somewhat trite but is there truth in it? For those of us whose hearts have been scattered (not to mention occasionally shattered) while living across borders, perhaps our ideas of home are in pieces and now we get to decide how to pick up the pieces and reassemble a totally new perspective.

As Chris O’Shaughnessy, author of Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, said to me only this morning, “perceptions and perspectives are leaky”, which I think means it’s hard to pin down a perception like “home”, almost like nailing a ghost to a wall. Home might be divided between the country that shaped us and the one that now sustains us. It might exist in multiple places simultaneously, or perhaps in none of these. It might look one way for several months and differently for the remainder of the year. Many of us have found belonging or home is built across several geographical locations.

Maria J, who moved to San Miguel five years ago from Minneapolis, reflects: "I used to think I was leaving home. Now I realize I was coming home to a place I'd never been before."

Perhaps home isn't defined by geography but by what geographer Yi-Fu Tuan called "topophilia". That’s simply a big word for the bond between people and a specific place. It's more about where we feel a sense of belonging, security, and emotional attachment, and so many of us enjoy this experience here in San Miguel de Allende.

For many of us San Miguel de Allende transplants, home has become less about national identity and more about community. Our friendships are forged in art classes, language classes, coffee shops and through volunteer work.

This sense of connection also builds belonging and can anchor us and orient us to this magical city as home. "I've lived in seven different houses in my life," shares Robert S, a former accountant from Toronto, "but I've never felt as 'at home' as I do here, surrounded by people who have also chosen a similar path. We understand each other without explanation."

Does this suggest that home might be found in our sense of belonging rather than in the buildings? Is it our relationships that validate our experiences and hold space for home?

Perhaps home is not something we find but something we create through daily rituals and practices.  I could be morning coffee on a terrace watching the city awake, or a nod to the flower vendor on the corner as you pass, or Tuesday market where the vendor already knows what you prefer.

One of the common traits of successful expats across the globe is that they live deeply and participate fully in growing a sense of “home” around them. But be patient, because for some of us it can take time to develop the emotional attachments and that heart-felt sense of home that we strive for. Home, in this light, becomes not a static place we've left or arrived at, but rather a dynamic state of being we continue to create with each conscious choice – home becomes part of our journey rather than our destination.

And isn't that, after all, what brought many of us to San Miguel in the first place?

What say you about home? Write and let us know what you think about the term “home”, we would love to hear your musings.

Doreen Cumberford, author of "Life in the Camel Lane: Embrace the Adventure" and "Arriving Well," currently writing "Unsettled: When Home Doesn't Feel Like Home," a guide to repatriation after living abroad and host of "Nomadic Diaries Podcast."www.nomadicdiariespodcast.com