"Much about home is imagining home.” - Frances Mayes in A Place In The World
Cynefin (kuh-nev-in) - a Welsh word that has many layers of meaning. It can signify the multiple, intertwined factors in our environment and our experience that influence us, in ways that we can never fully understand. It has no equivalent in the English language, but conjures a personal ‘sense of place’, belonging, familiarity and relationship to the place of your birth or upbringing. A deep connection to the land and her stories. It is a holistic concept that encompasses the social, cultural, spiritual and economic dimensions of the place and the way they all interact with one another to create a specific and individual experience.
We moved!
We said “see you soon” to our home in Florida and made the 8.5 hour (turned 11 in the big moving truck!) drive north to South Carolina nearly a month ago. As all moves tend to be, this one has brought its fair share of “what the heck did we just do?!!!” moments. The out of control sensation of uprooting your life and starting again in a new place tends to linger for me for a few months after a big move. I am moving towards myself with tenderness as we settle and also allowing room for grief and loss to move through.
This afternoon, I have a big pot of chai simmering on the stove and it is the autumn equinox, where we’ll experience equal hours of sunlight and darkness before our descent into winter. We have a special meal planned for this evening and we picked up some locally grown pumpkins to have on display until thanksgiving. It feels comfortingly right to be feeling the seasonal transition as we physically moved to new land, and also process through loss in both of our families during the recent weeks.
Living in a country that I was not born and raised in often has me thinking about my experience of home. What makes a home? What gives that specific feeling of belonging, safety and comfort? When we arrived in Florida, it didn’t take me long to realise that I didn’t feel at home there. For me, home is strongly tied to the natural environment. The trees, birds, flowers, weather, growing seasons etc, in Florida were completely different to anything I had experienced before. Prior to Florida, Northern California felt more like home with the changing seasons and mountains but the 110 degree summers felt completely shocking. Berlin felt so fun and at the same time, the wildness of the city left me craving the slow, open space of the countryside. I had no idea how connected my body was and is to the environment that I grew up in, in Wales, until I lived in these places that felt (and are) so foreign to me.
Despite not feeling that at home sensation in Florida, we still made it our home. We soaked up the sunshine, went to the beach as much as we could, celebrated how often we could be outside and treasured the cooler days in winter that felt so cosy. I listened to a podcast1 with
a few months ago while walking along the bay, when we knew that we would be moving, and she said something that really spoke to me. She shared that although she has moved a lot, she is always putting down roots and allows each place to shape her. I understood this as creating the experience of cynefin in every home, whether it’s a place we stay for decades or just a stop along the way.2I was so inspired by the way she shared about her connection to the land and the small, simple ways she deepens her relationship with the beings around her. Learning the names of birds, saying “hello” to the trees she passes each day on her walks. I made a promise to myself that I would do this in our new home here in SC. In ways where I let community be less of a priority in previous years, I am committing to establishing connections here. Each morning I sit on the balcony and listen to the birds, sometimes using the Merlin app to identify their songs and then look them up in my bird book. I feel called to further simplify our food habits, leaning more on fresh, locally sourced produce. We already don’t consume a lot of processed foods, but I feel the pull to go even further to source what we need from small businesses near us instead of big stores. I have left one of my jobs which means I have so much more time in the evenings to spend with family, on hobbies (I am currently learning to sew!) and to rest. This move prompted me to look at the ways my energy felt drained and to plug up the leaks. Letting go to welcome in things that truly give life.
Although I often experience moments of longing to be in Wales, where I so strongly feel this sensation of being at home, I am making a choice to be in relationship with this place in a way that feels nourishing and inspiring3. A promise to create home. I want to bring in the elements of home in Wales that feel so nurturing to me, to make welsh cakes on a Sunday afternoon, to have cawl for dinner in the winter months, to plant daffodils on our balcony for spring and celebrate the British holidays as well as the American ones. I plan to embrace aspects of the surrounding culture too, to build this multi-layered experience of home.
As the seasons turn and the time of letting go, nestling in and soaking up all of the goodness of home comes, I feel anticipation and hope for what I/we will create in our new home. I dream of creating new seasonal celebrations, sewing decor and gifts for loved ones, lots of baking, connecting with new and old friends, allowing grief to flow freely through me and planting seeds for the spring to come. As Mayes says, what we imagine about home, we create. I am curious about how much of my own experience of home is coming from something internal and the endless possibilities of home when I know I have the ability to create something beautiful. Here in South Carolina, or wherever else we end up.. who knows.
I would love to hear from you, if you have some thoughts to share about creating home. What feels especially needed at this time of year to bring the feeling of safety and comfort that home holds? What does autumn mean to you, what feelings does it evoke inside of you? If you have moved (a little or a lot!), what has been your experience of putting down roots in a new place?
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Thank you so much for reading and spending your time here with me. Sending love, Em xx
The podcast with Dr Sharon Blackie that I loved. I also adore her book If Women Rose Rooted, where she also talks more about connection to the land ~
I wrote this while listening to this dreamy playlist ~