A Thanksgiving Community

There are few things that make you miss home more than knowing you will not be there during a big holiday. This past weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada, and I knew that while my family was carving the turkey and devouring the stuffing, I would not be joining them this year. I knew that I had two choices. I could drown myself in homesickness and a finish off a tub of ice cream, or I could create my own Canadian celebration in New York.

I was lucky enough to meet a lovely group of girls on my very first day at NYU. All of us had arrived a few days early to participate in the international students’ orientation. During one of the sessions, we were asked to stand up when our country was announced so that we could get a visual feel for the countries represented. There were only three Canadians who stood up, but I connected immediately with one of them! She had been chatting with a few other students that morning and we all decided to spend the lunch hour together. The little group has continued spending time together, and we jokingly call ourselves the “United Nations”- there are Canadians, one from Venezuela, one from Columbia, one from Switzerland, one from France, one from Hong Kong, one from Germany. It’s easy to see why that name stuck.

Now, can you believe that of all the “United Nations” members, only us two Canadians had ever celebrated Thanksgiving. So I decided to host one, and cook my first turkey! All the girls were so excited, and everyone pitched in by brining a dish to compliment our bird. And so, 10 giggling girls gathered in my apartment to feast. A few came early so that they could prepare their dishes before dinner was served. At one point I looked over at the dining table — multiple hands were chopping away at veggies while stories were being exchanged and laughter was vibrating everywhere. This, I realized, felt like home. In my family, we have a cheesy tradition of going around the room and each saying one thing we are grateful for before beginning to feast. I decided to start the same tradition with the group and almost each girl said: “I’m grateful for meeting friends that I can laugh and celebrate with.”

And though I certainly did miss home, I couldn’t help but feel overwhelmingly joyful this weekend. Not only was it a true gift to have 10 lovely humans grace my apartment, only slightly a month after moving to a new city, but I was also able to help them experience a new holiday for the first time. Each of these new friends were a million miles from their own families, but we were able to create a sense of belonging by including each other. So while it’s true that home is where the heart is, I think home might also be where you decide to share your heart.

PS: In case you are wondering: my first turkey turned out great! And I put all the leftovers in a delectable turkey soup the next day too! 🙂

Roots and Wings

How important is having roots? Can you create roots in a brand new place?

A few years ago I was writing a song with my lovely friend Lisa Nicole Grace. We would often get together to talk about different writing ideas, and see if we could set some music to them. Lisa was pregnant first baby (who ended up being a delightful little boy named Asher), and found a quote that struck a chord with her: “The two most important gifts we can give our children are roots and wings”. We also had a mutual friend going through some personal ups and downs at the time, and so we decided to write a song based on both the poem and our friend’s own need for finding some grounding while in her confused head space. This is what we came up with that evening, we called it “Roots and Wings”:

I’ve been thinking of the song and of the concept of having roots, especially since my previous post about creating a sense of home in a new city. There is no doubt New York is an extremely fun and busy city. I love exploring and seeing new things, though I sometimes feel overwhelmed with all the different activities you can do!

I’ve noticed myself longing to root into a few places I feel I can call “mine”: a coffee shop I study at every day (where staff are starting to recognize my face), a little yoga studio (where people know my name), and even within my little apartment. Does the ability to fly and have the wings to explore and enjoy things depend partially on also having roots? Are the two mutually exclusive?

It would be an interesting question to ask the adventurous backpackers of the world, or the people that always seem to be bravely shifting from place to place. Within all that movement, is there still something that remains consistent? A book you read every night? A bracelet that’s always on you? I have done some solo globe-trotting, and I always felt the need to write in a journal. To me, even if everything was different around me, that was a root.

A friend, and psychologist once told me that rooting is extremely important for human beings. Even if roots are family members who live a million miles away. It may just be that even the most seemingly fearless and free-spirited people still need their own version of consistency in order to be truly free. Or maybe it’s just me who does?

What is Home?

A few weeks before I was about to move to New York City from my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to pursue a masters degree, I decided to take in an early morning yoga class. When I got to the studio, the instructor told the group that she had decided to conduct the practice a little differently that day. She wanted to try something called “talk shop”. She would ask a question, and while we stretched with our mats positioned in a circle, we could discuss what the topic meant to each of us. I thought it sounded interesting, and the other participants agreed. We got into our mat circle and began, albeit slightly apprehensively.

For 20 minutes we bent and swayed and did all the normal yogi-like movements, and then she asked us: “What is home?”. The question seemed incredibly fitting to my situation, and I was sure I would likely be the only one who had been contemplating the subject in the last few weeks. Not so. Someone else was actually moving away too – that very day! Another had recently moved to Edmonton and was trying to find her place in a new community. Still another had just had a roommate leave, and was feeling a shift in their own sense of home through the departure. We each shared our feelings of what creates a home. In the end, it seemed like to each of us, it was a feeling rather than a place. And the feeling centered around balance and belonging.

Since that day, and my subsequent move to New York, I’ve often thought of that yoga class. It’s true, especially in a big new city that I yearn for that intangible feeling of home now, more than ever. Is home something external, that changes with circumstance, or can a sense of home be created internally? Would it be possible to be so at home within yourself that a city, or a roommate, or your circle of friends had little baring on the feeling inside?

I’d like the explore the concept of home, and all the ways, over my first semester at NYU, that I can work at creating a sense of it within a new environment.