Weekly Photo Challenge: Home

Since college, Rich and I have moved 12 times to 6 different states along the East Coast and in the Midwest.

We’ve lived in the city:

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge

And in the country.

Three trees, Lake Winnepesaukee, NH

And places in between–surburban developments with cul de sacs, basketball hoops, and cookie-cutter center hall colonials in pastel shades with highly individualistic mailboxes and lawn ornaments:

Rocky Mailbox

Golf ball mailbox

A Dutch lawn ornament (Mannekin Pis) in Holland, Michigan

We’ve lived in an apartment in Brighton Beach built on sand that tippled crazily. Cakes baked on a slant, curtain rods dipped several inches lower on the left than on the right. We spent glorious summers and frigid winters in a waterfront condo with spectacular views of Lake Winnepesaukee and the White Mountains. And we spent a couple of years in a 2 story-townhouse in the Detroit suburbs where noctural skunks returned every morning to their burrows and battled with sleepy possums for squatters rights.

We’ve squeezed into places as small as 1,000 square feet, and sprawled out in a 5-bedroom house with too many nooks and crannies and bathrooms to clean.

Along the banks of the Grand River, Michigan

So, it’s not surprising that my definition of “home” is not necessarily a geographic place. Instead, it is the physical space I share with the people I love, surrounded by a few precious possessions and rooms filled with as much light, laughter and good food as possible.

Is home a geographic space for you or is it simply being close to the people you love?