Today I want to revisit a post I wrote back in November, called “Finding Home.”  I was thinking about this post the other day, embarrassed that I’d so gallantly declared I’d found home just a few months ago yet here it’s all changed.  But when I re-read it, very little actually has changed.

Our First Home.

I would not take away our past year in rurality for anything.  Matt and I both needed it.  I was working in the film industry in Los Angeles, working about 95-100 hours a week for many months at a time.  There was no time to evaluate where I wanted to be in five years.  The jobs kept coming, so there was no time to actively seek out the filmmakers I most wanted to work with.  Or whether or not I wanted to be in the Los Angeles film world at all.  And our married life was virtually non-existent from the moment I stepped off the plane after our honeymoon.

Matt had been working on me for a couple of years, to move and seek out a more sustainable lifestyle.  Finally, something clicked in me and I knew it was time.  It was time to take a break, to try to find a home where we could settle and live the life we wanted to live.  A sustainable, happy, healthy life.

We found that life.  We found our home.  We learned to garden enough to feed our family.  We learned to make food from scratch, from local sources.  We found the Riot For Austerity, a group of people all working toward the same goals of reducing our impact on climate change.  I found this blog, and the amazingly supportive world of sustainable bloggers.  I found that my own voice could be a catalyst for change, our story could be inspiring, and by gathering other voices together, us bloggers could really do something positive for the planet.  Not bad for a year, eh?

But together Matt and I learned that this home wasn’t our final destination.  We needed to pass through, to make our small mark and to have this place make its mark on us.  We had a wake-up call.  And once that happened, once we were a bit more awakened to our environment and our future, we began to see more clearly that we needed to keep looking, that our path was not complete.

Sustainability and Rurality.

Last week Matt reminded me of an article I’d read by Toby Hemenway, who wrote Gaia’s Garden:  A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture (one of my favorite gardening books).  A couple years ago, I read Hemenway’s article with rose colored glasses firmly set on my ears, coloring my eyesight.  But today I re-read the article.  Substitute Henenway’s 10 years for our one, and I could have written this article today (in fact I started to!)

If you are thinking of moving to a rural area yourself, please take a look at this article.  I’m not saying don’t move to a rural area, and I’m not saying if you live in a rural area you should move.  But take what Hemenway and now I am saying, and just make sure that the lifestyle is (and will be) sustainable:  sustainable for your pocketbook, your family, your relationships, and your planet.

Home Can Change, And It’s OK.

The Back to Lander generation made a strong case for living a sustainable life in a rural setting.  But an awful lot of them moved back to the cities because, like us, they couldn’t afford it. So what if you live somewhere that’s not right?  Or it’s right now, but in two years it is no longer working? 

Take steps to change it.  I know this is easier said than done.  That jobs, friends, family, and the familiar all complicate matters a great deal.  But in the end, you are in charge of your own happiness. 

Let me say that again:  you are in charge of your own happiness.  You have people around you who love you, and can help, but only you can find your own happiness.

Is Home a Place or a Mindset?

What do you think?  I’m not sure myself.  I know that when I am feeling good and right, I love the place where I am living.  I know that my house at least in part defines me.

Right now I believe that home is a combination of things:  Home is a lifestyle.  Home is a place where you can relax and think, and get things done and move toward your goals.  Home is a place where your close family resides together, plays together, eats together, thinks together, talks together, and dreams together.  Home is a place where you are happy.  In fact, I believe home has a lot to do with happiness.

Where To Find Home (The Place).

Ultimately, home is at least in part a place.  In “Finding Home,” I listed our criteria for finding our home.  We’ve revised the list a bit, but it’s not all that different than it was before:

1. 1.   The region and house must make us both happy.
   

2. 2.   The area must have a stable local economy.
   

3. 3.   The area must have a good public transportation system and good bike lanes.
   

4. 4.   We should be able to walk to infrastructure, including a farmer’s market (preferably year-round).
   

5. 5.   We should feel comfortable with the people in the area/town.
   

6. 6.   We should like the weather.
   

7. 7.   We have to have enough room and light for a garden.
   

8. 8.   We need to be able to find good, well-paying work.
   

9. 9.   We need to be fairly close to good cultural area.
   

10. 10.  We need to live in a place that is pet-friendly.
    

Go Find It.

I’m going to leave you with a final thought from the original post:

I encourage you to sit for a few moments today and sip a cup of tea, or do your favorite reflective ritual.  And ponder whether or not you feel like you’re home.  I can tell you that being home feels good, safe, warm, happy, and like you have to pinch yourself occasionally.  If you’re not feeling that you’re home, do a little bit of research today.  Think about where you might be happy.  What type of place would that be?  Make a list.  Just start there.

Now, I’m off to grab that cup of tea!