What's in a name?

A friend of mine explained to me recently that words are just signifiers. They have meaning because we've placed meaning on them. I've known this, I suppose, since I was a kid when in my boredom I'd repeat a word over and over and over, "fork, fork, fork, fork, fork" until the word lost any meaning to me and I would burst into laughter.

Across cultures we often don't have the same signifiers and for many of us it takes great pains and hours of study in order to communicate. We do however have shared experiences. We're all born, we all love, we all lose, we all eat, drink, and breathe. We all have a sense of home.

I teach English as a Second Language to military spouses as part of my eclectic existence. Over the years I've taught women from Hungary, Italy, Peru, and many French Canadians. Once or twice I've had this moment in class where someone asks the difference between the words "house" and "home." As if it were that black and white. The irony lies in the fact that the answer is held in their present experience, and yet I struggle to answer this question clearly. I don't know if I can answer this question clearly. Because I am not sure how to answer it for myself. You say, "you're reading too much into it... these poor women just asked a simple vocabulary question." Am I? Have they?

Home, home, home, home, home. I don't have to say this word over and over for it's meaning to be lost for me. I don't know what it means and it means so much. I currently live in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is and is not my home. I'm not from here. I'm not even from Canada. But being American (don't throw rocks yet) isn't what makes me feel far from home like the women that I teach to speak English. Although, I feel that, too. It's something that anyone can relate to. Anyone who remembers any sweet part of their childhood, has ever been separated from a loved one, tried to return to the house they grew up in, or questioned God's purpose for their life.

I'm an American in Canada. I'm an artist in the world. I'm a wife in the military. I'm a child. I'm an adult. I'm a Christ follower on this side of heaven. Where is my home? This is what I seek to explore. I've lived too much to believe I'll answer this question, but like a nomad without a place to pitch his tent I plan to journey in search of the answer just the same.

So... I write to you under a newly shingled roof, in a city where I've lived for a year in a half, in a country whose national anthem I've yet to learn, with husband who's making ready for a six-month deployment to the Persian Gulf... and a longing for home. Where ever, whatever, whoever that is.