Coming Home....

I'm coming home...
Coming home....
Tell the world, I'm coming home........

Those are the lyrics to a popular song playing on the airwaves right now. I hear it quite often on the radio.
And sitting in an airport, watching people...hustle and bustle.....walk up and down...rushing......
If you ask them where they are going...most will answer 'HOME'.

It's got me thinking.....in this day and age, where is home for most of us?
Travelling through America, it's a common question people have....Where you from?
Most people are from a different state....different city.....different country.
And it's quite normal for it to be so...
I think I realize more now than ever, how much people are on the move.
The concept of a Global Village is really a reality.

Growing up in Africa, the usual question I used to get is, which village are my people from?
Now, unknown to many, I didn't have a 'village' to call home.
I was a city girl....Born and Raised.
I never had grandparents somewhere else in some upcountry destination to go visit on school holidays.....
My grandparents and everyone in knew in my family were right there in the city with me!
It was a concept that was difficult for many people to grasp.
They always felt like I was not being entirely honest with them with my answers.
But being bi-racial at that time was also a concept that people were not quite used to as well.
So here I was, the non-villager with no village.....
No HOME.

Moving overseas, that question did become easier......
Where is home? Ofcourse Kenya!
But then I had moved with no intention of living in Kenya in the near foreseeable future.....So where was home now?
I embraced London with open arms and it was to me 'home' now.
I had family around...Great friends.....School....A job.....A place where I could put my head down everyday.
The place where I was living my life.
This was home now.

There is a popular saying that home is where the heart is.
I was soon uprooted from my English life...swept off my feet my an American fellow....And suddenly the dynamics of everything was thrown into disarray.
Moving to the Middle East with my husband was a temporary plan, with the possibility of making it more long term if that was agreeable.......
I following my heart.....
But there was an instant 2-way mutual dislike.....disregard.....disdain......between the Middle East and I.
THAT never became home.

There is a popular ideology that for a woman....And it exists in many cultures.....That a woman's home is where her parents are, or where her husband is.
I don't know how they factor women who are not married and not living with their parents....but hey that's a whoooole different topic for another day:-)
I guess I came to America somehow with that in my subconcsious.

So it's taken a bit of a mind shift, but now when people talk about America.....
Eh.....that's ME!
When people talk about American Muslims........hold up.........that's ME.
It's not THEM anymore....It's US.
THIS is HOME now.

I know so many people who have moved....Are thinking of moving....Are in the process of moving....from one place on this planet to somewhere else.
For personal reasons.
For professional reasons.
I wonder where they consider Home?
I think it has become such a dynamic amorphous concept and word in this day and age.
But I do wonder what people feel about it.....
If they even think about it...
Really think about it.
Does it matter anymore??

And so they announce it's boarding time for my flight.
My flight Home :-)