"Where is home...?"

...Asked a close friend when she returned from a two-month trip around the UK. Some people would unequivocally answer that it is where they were born, where they grew up, where their family is, the house they live in...I couldn't give such a simple answer. In our transient communities in an era of globalisation, it's becoming harder to define where "home" might be.

Personally, I feel no connection with the place in which I grew up. It was a small town containing lots of unhappy people, and I found it stifling from a young age. The pressure to conform suffocated me, so I worked hard at school with the knowlege that it would provide my ticket out of there - to go to university; to find my place in the world. I visited my mum occasionally but preferred her to come and stay with me. Then when she passed away I had no connection with the town at all. I reflected that perhaps home is formed through memory. I didn't have many happy memories of my time there.

Places we return to are always filled with memories, even if it's just that there was a cafe around the corner from the train station. Sometimes however, these memories are powerful and can be evoked merely by seeing pictures of a place. For me, the North Yorkshire Moors at the end of August, swathed in purple heather and sunshine, smelling of honey...that is a powerful memory - I felt at home for the first time in my life. I felt I belonged to that place. I still do, although I have never lived there, only nearby and I have only visited for short periods. Does that sense of belonging make it my home?

I have never been enough of a free spirit to be able to travel the world in a "wherever I lay my hat..." style of living, but I can understand those who do. However, when does the journey end and what does "coming home" mean? For me, I come home every day to my lovely house which I am blessed to share with my partner and my dog. It is a good space, with nice energy and a feeling of sanctuary from the world. But it is bricks and mortar, the previous house we shared was equally "home" at the time. Which makes me question can home really be just a place, a geographical spot?

People with a strong national or regional identity have argued that home will always be part of their identity, be that Scottish, Cornish, American, English or other. However, such identity and sense of home was tested when I went to New York for the first time some years ago. Within hours of arriving at Grand Central station, I got into a short argument with a taxi driver, came out with what I wanted, no hard feelings, we enjoyed a joke afterwards. My fellow travellers suggested I had found my spiritual home! Maybe they were right. I felt I could totally be myself in that city, I was at one with the space, it was exciting! Then my trip was over, my visa expired, I came home. So, is our home actually dictated by political, legal and sociological boundaries?

The UK press have been fascinated recently by the story of a local council who wanted to evict travellers from a "permanent site". This has caused much debate and contributed to my contemplation about "home" and the desire to have one. Surely the essence of being a traveller was to travel? Yet there appears to be an innate desire for permanence. A societal requirement that we all have a sense of place - to "know your place" can be instilled in us from a young age. So those of us who wish to transgress class, educational and geographical boundaries, can end up displaced and confused. On the flip side, we can also look for and find our sense of place, our home within the people around us, the view of the moon, making a meal, the smell of cut grass...Something familiar.