What Is Home?

Posted on July 27, 2026 Updated on July 27, 2026

Thomas Wolfe’s novel, posthumously published in 1940, was titled, You Can’t Go Home Again. This title has become a warning and an often-deployed platitude. Books have been written, movies made with that question at their core, can she/he/they/them go home again––because the question is universal and timeless.

Many of those movies portray a family in a splendid home with enough bedrooms for all the bickering adult siblings, maybe an attached winery, horse barn, cattle ranch or at least a guest house by the pool. None of that privilege was my experience.

Nonetheless, can we really go home again? And what is home?

Is home a place, sound, taste, or feeling?

For example, an elderly neighbor of mine, in her 90s, walks by my house every day and admires my roses. Today she saw our newly placed realtor’s ‘For Sale’ sign.

“You are to move from das house?” she asked in broken English.

“Yes,” I said, standing up from weed pulling. “We are moving home to Oregon.”

“Home,” she said. “Home vwould be nice ….” Her gaze drifted to the sky. Her thoughts seemed to drift as well. She’d been having memory issues lately, likely dementia. “No …” she whispered to the sky. “Vwe can never go home.”

“Poland, right?” I asked, recalling one of our many previous conversations. “When did you leave?”

She glanced up and down the street, then cast her eyes downward to her mismatched shoes, and grumbled, “Stalin.”

I felt her anger and deep sorrow. “Oh … I’m sorry. Those were terrible years.”

“Yes,” she met my gaze for a long moment. Then she lifted her arthritic fingers to her mouth. “I taste mama’s potato pierogis.” She gently tapped her lips. “Das vwas home, das taste.” She closed her eyes, smiled, and then laid her hand over her heart. “Go home for me who cannot.” She walked away, lost in fading memories.

As she continued her walk, I knew she’d already forgotten our conversation. But I won’t forget her reminder of how tastes and smells are portals to memory, maybe especially when endangered memories vanish as quickly as that elusive word lost at the edge of your tongue.

As I watched her amble down the road, I summoned the familiar senses that remind me of home;

Coffee. Shoe wax. Bacon. Mom’s Emeraude perfume.

Each of those smells arouses a unique memory, conjures images and evokes emotion, connecting me to so many stories.

Coffee: mornings with dad, either at our home in Portland, or most favorably sitting by the campfire in Nehalem or on the beach in Manzanita. Dad’s old percolator pot on its makeshift wire rack above the fire, gurgling to life, generating the smell that has lingered in my senses for a lifetime.

Shoe wax: Saturdays, since I was nine years old, working with my dad at his shoe repair. Then, as a teen 3-4 days a week. That waxy smell always transported me into our secret world where mom and my brothers never interfered. A world of dad’s jazz music, or Dean Martin, playing in the background, and dad whistling along. And the sound of the eight-foot-long, five-foot-tall shoe repair and brush machines where he was putting a final waxy shine on boots, high heels, and leather loafers. And of course, the smell of coffee from his back shop burner. My roll top desk was always littered with sketch pads and writing paper in the back of the shop. With three younger brothers at home, quiet time was rare, so in between customers, this was precious writing, drawing, and coffee time. And a time when dad and I could just hang out, quietly absorbed in our music or art, refilling coffee cups and enjoying the peace. The waxy smell of a shoe repair makes me feel calm––said no one ever!

Bacon: Bacon was Dad’s favorite breakfast food, but he rarely made it, and Mom didn’t cook. If I woke up and smelled bacon, it generally meant Grandma was there, living with us for a while to help manage ‘the kids’ and poor mom’s wickedly hormonal mood swings. Life was great with our stabilizer, Grandma Ollie. And my dad adored her. Grandma brought peace, stopped my parents’ non-stop fighting, soothed the day for mom, and made my brothers behave. It was heaven, and at the core of that heaven was the smell of bacon. The smell of bacon makes me feel safe and protected.

Emeraude Perfume: Mom’s favorite perfume in the late 1950’s and 60s. When she wore it, it meant she felt pretty, and if mom felt pretty, the universe took notice. I mean literally: newspaper interviews, stage performances, and being at the center of a prestigious social circle. All of this meant she was in a good mood, and in a good mood, Mom was delightful, charming, loving, and caring to the extent she was capable. The smell of Emeraude Perfume makes me feel cheerful, but also reminds me there is a shadow side to that transitory cheer.

More than a house, nostalgia, and memories, home is a deeply spiritual experience. When I was young, we moved around Portland too many times to count, so home is not a specific house for me. Though my family was troubled––my father and two of my three brothers’ lives mired in alcoholism and drug addiction, and my mom’s mental health issues haunted every aspect of our lives–there was love.

And it is that love that anchors my feelings about home.

I’ll continue this exploration of what is home in the next post. Meanwhile, what is home for you?

That’s my dad at the brush machines, lost in his work sometime in the early 1970s, then him and I late 1970s, and me, old now but still my father’s daughter in my devotion to a good cup of coffee