Homesick for...?

I wrote my first paper in this class about a man who was “homesick for the rest of the world.” And, I can’t stop thinking about him and being homesick for somewhere that isn’t really home, because I, too, have been feeling that way these past few weeks.

I was born and raised in Minnesota, but my parents are British. Because all of my extended family lives in England, I’ve spent a collection of summers and Christmases in South East England, hiking through grassy fields of sheep and getting my boots stuck in muddy, brambley woods, munching my way through packets of Jammie Dodgers and sharing cups of tea with my grandparents.

YUM

And, despite living there for a year when I was three years old, I never really considered it home. That has always been saved for Minnetonka, the clean and quiet Minneapolis suburb on the lake, the place I’ve lived for the past fourteen years.

 

My home in Minnetonka, MN

Is this home?? Here's the Cathedral in my parents' hometown

My parents stand in front of the church where they got married in their hometown

But now, being away from home has made me question what ‘home’ really is.

I think what I’ve really been clinging to these past few weeks is not exactly a place or a building, but rather just everything that I knew to be familiar. And, what was familiar was my childhood: one full of Paddington Bear and Postman Pat stories, Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five at bedtime, the Sooty puppets alive at the will of my grandfather’s hand, pantomimes and paper hats at Christmas.

Some sketches of what I've been missing recently

Ah, Paddington. 

ps did you know he's got a movie coming out next year??  

Granddad at Christmas in his paper crown...he was never one for great facial expressions

Sooty was a kids tv show about this yellow bear puppet...funny how when you're young you are oblivious to the entirely creepy nature of puppets. 

Good ol' bedtime literature for a 7 year old.

All of these objects manifest a culture which I have always associated with a place—Enlgand—but really, I am not missing a physical place at all, but instead one within my own mind, where my childhood lies.