“Home is a feeling you miss when it’s not around” – The Meaning of Home – by DyAnna Grondahl. The North Star Reports: Global Citizenship and Digital Literacy, at NorthStarReports.org and facebook.com/NorthStarReports
Duluth became home the moment I realized that I had the five hour drive to my parent’s house in Roseau memorized.
[Source of photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Superior%5D
Hermantown, Floodwood, Grand Rapids, Deer River, Northome, Kelliher, Baudette, Warroad, Roseau – Finally. The first hour and a half go quickly. Then it’s time for a stop in Deer River, because it’s going to be a while until the next Holiday station. The second hour comes quickly, but passes slowly. As does the third, and even the fourth. Baudette marks the final hour, and you’re home free.
The trip back is just the same, but the small towns go backwards, time moves more slowly, and Grand Rapids is the sign of hope that the drive will soon end.
There’s a giant, ugly swamp between Grand Rapids and Floodwood. I don’t know if it is the gnarled, black trees or the dead, yellow ground, but this portion of the drive to Duluth is where I frequently found myself uncomfortable- most notably, overcome with feelings of abandonment, shame, and grief. These moments also marked a transition back to reality – it’s the part of the drive when I actually realize I am headed back to Duluth, and I am not sure when I will be going north again.
Throughout last semester, I spent a lot more time thinking about home than I initially expected. While we discussed different facets of migration and its implications, it was clear – home can’t be just one place. Simultaneously, home means a variety of things to different people. Growing up in a stable-yet-chaotic-ten-person household paints a very different picture of home than many have experienced. If I’m being honest, I think my first night in the dorms at CSS marked my first time being alone – ever. In addition, my idea of home has been heavily influenced by my work at the Safe Haven Shelter and Resource Center – a domestic violence agency in Duluth.
Alas, last semester when I started my intentional pursuit of a definition of home, I finally realized what was happening on my drives to and from Roseau. As one of the 8 people who didn’t stay in town or go to UND after graduation, I was officially breaking out of the bubble – and I felt guilty about it. I felt like I was betraying my upbringing and my small town roots. I was supposed to work my way up to run the bakery and settle down. Instead of doing so, I chose to create a new home in Duluth.
Duluth and Roseau really aren’t all that different. The towns share important staples like hockey, Scandinavian roots, and, perhaps most importantly, SuperOne stores. One of these three things, while I didn’t realize it when I enrolled at St. Scholastica, became an important part of my definition of home.
Home is a feeling you miss when it’s not around.
I’ll outline this definition with an anecdote:
My first night in Duluth was absolutely terrifying. I left Roseau by 9:00am, arrived in Duluth by 2:30, and moved into my dorm. Late in the afternoon, I decided to get out to explore the city behind the wheel (as if I hadn’t done enough driving already). When I found myself circling up and down Mesaba and 4th Ave W, I decided my adventure wasn’t productive enough to continue. After my return to my dorm, the panic of relocation really set in. I was full of anxiety and I missed my dad – a lot. So, as any rational human being would, I decided to go to SuperOne. This trip to the grocery store brought me an unreasonable amount of comfort.
My dad has managed the local grocery store in Roseau for over 20 years. It has changed hands a number of times, but in 2013 Miner’s Inc bought it. Since then it has been a SuperOne store. Walking in to the SuperOne on Kenwood I was greeted with the same colors, smells, and mediocre to moderately good service I could expect from my dad’s store in Roseau. With that, I was able to pacify my longing for the familiar feeling of home, and I felt assurance that I could make Duluth home, too.
Now Duluth is my home where I have an “adult” job, a parking spot, and four wheels that can take me to my other home without even looking up the directions.
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Hello!
What a lovely article! I absolutely love that one can find their “home away from home” in places that one would never expect to. For a lot of people, the senses are the easiest way to resonate one place to the other. Just like your superOne experience, I personally feel most at home when I eat food from my hometown. Smells also bring me back to specific moments from home and I think that it’s nice we’re able to experience things like this!
Reblogged this on Professor Liang 梁弘明教授.
DyAnna,
I really enjoyed reading this because I relate to your guilt leaving home quite a lot. I am relieved to know that I’m not the only one who feels uncomfortable stepping outside of their childhood town even though I’m sure it is way more common than we all think. We’re often bombarded with social media posts that show people our age going off to other parts of the world for “adventure” and to “find themselves.” Truth is, that stuff is a whole load of crap for many reasons and it is okay to be attached to places we find familiar. Although it is healthy to explore and push boundaries, it is also important to remember and cherish where we came from. Thank for sharing! I am going to go cry about how much I miss my dog who lives in St. Paul now.
Catey
Hi DyAnna!
I love how you desribe home. I would have never thought of home like that, but it totally makes sense. I kind of had to laugh, because your first night at CSS sounded very similar to mine! Six hours away from home, in an unfamiliar place, and complete strangers surrounding me was what I went to sleep with, and woke up with in the morning. For me, my first year here at CSS was the first time I had been away from home or family for more than a week or two at a time. At that point, I would never have called CSS home. But after living here for a year, Duluth has become that place, the feeling that I miss over Winter break and Sumer break. Now I think I have two places that feel like home to me, and I think that is the best thing ever.
DyAnna,
Thank you for sharing your perspective on home. This is something that I often think about. I used to only associate my childhood home as “home.” Now I strongly believe home is more of a feeling. I find myself finding a sense of home in a variety of things. I notice this more as I start to live an independent life away from my parent’s house. Do you plan on living in Roseau ever again?
Ashley
Wow, DyAnna. Thank you so much for this article. I struggled a lot last semester with the concept of home and whether or not I would be betraying my hometown if I loved somewhere else more. This article makes me think not. I will simultaneously feel at home and away from home, probably for my whole life- somehow, embedded in my bones is this call to run away from Duluth and never look back, but I always miss it when I’m gone. Likewise, I feel a deep yearning for a place far away in which I’ve never actually lived, but have traveled to. I feel a sense of security in your perspective. I am allowed to have more than one home and I don’t need to feel ashamed of longing for change. I can’t wait to leave this place and rekindle the spark that burns when I’m missing home. I can’t wait to find a home in which I feel I truly belong as my restlessness says Duluth is not it.
Hi Dyanna,
This article was extremely relatable and I very much enjoyed how you put into words the feeling of home. I find my feeling of home is very much when im surrounded by those who can make me laugh and feel comfortable, not so much a fixed location much like your definition. I remember my first time studying abroad in Peru, before having left the United States I was very afraid to leave my home and family, but having stayed in Peru for the first 2 months I found my sense of home drastically changing to more of a feeling than an actual location.
Thank you for the delightful read.
DyAnna,
I think so many people are able to relate to this article and I judge that to be a positive thing. Leaving home to start your own adventure challenges your entire upbringing. The strings you stretch when you initially leave your families home do not break, however they become thin. Small portions allow you to relive some of your days, i.e. SuperOne, and some aspects are lost altogether. Home is able to hold such an abstract definition when leaving one home to create another.
Hi Dyanna,
I really enjoyed reading your article! Like a few others, I never thought of home being described like that. I can and cannot relate to you in a few ways. For one, my hometown is only an hour and a half from here. However, I can relate to the fact that I was afraid to be “on my own” when I moved up here even though I had already met my roommate before. Not many of the people I graduated with had left to go to college from my town but I wanted to get out of there. I felt free coming up here; like there was more option of things to do. I will always miss my “home” where I grew up, but I love having a new home up here in Duluth with my friends who feel like family. Thank you for sharing your article.
DyAnna,
What a lovely article. In this time of the winter season when everything i feel is dark but yet white,a person often drifts into there thoughts. Much like you, i think of this idea of home. I have always liked the expression that home is where the heart lays but, they don’t tell you that your heart can lay in so many places. i think we all do or go somewhere that reminds of where we came from, i watch old PBS nature films.
Hi DyAnna,
Your post is an amazing example of how home is such a meaningful part of a person’s life. I never have experienced the feeling of missing home until I studied aboard. I have a family house in Duluth so I am very familiar with the city and what it has to offer. I think that is what made it so easy for me to move in and start freshman year without being homesick. I am from the cities so I miss using highways to get to place to place and having more than one Target in the whole city. No matter where your home is, it will always be apart of you and who you are.
Thank you for such a great post,
Aleah Rubio
Hi, DyAnna!
I love how you describe your transition from your home in Roseau to your home in Duluth. For me, home is where my friends and family are. When I travel or when I am away from my hometown for a period of time, I miss my people. Whether it be my family, friends, or even coworkers, I find my “home” within our relationships. I may also add, home is also where my dog is! When I am with her, I feel that I am home.
Grace
I love this. I felt similarly coming form Bemidji to CSS. I can also relate to that drive along Highway 2 that you talk about haha. I find it fascinating how the feeling of home can change and how we are able to adapt to different environments and call them home. Thank you for this. What a lovely read and story.
Hi DyAnna!
This is an article I feel every freshman in college should read. I think it would relieve a lot of stress felt when entering a new chapter in their lives. As for myself, there wasn’t much of a transition in location for me after high school, I’ve always lived in Duluth, and while I had never been to Scholastica’s campus before college, I already knew of it’s existence and the surrounding area. I relate to this article in a slightly different way- I’ve moved around Duluth quite a lot. From West Duluth, to Central Duluth, to West Duluth, back to Central Duluth, back to West Duluth, to more up on the hill of Central Duluth, and now to the very far west part of West Duluth. I can say that the majority of these moves were not on purpose and/or for the best reasons. One of the positives that come out of moving around so much is that you learn to accept change faster, and learn what really makes a home- it’s not the building, but the experiences you create yourself. You learn to be okay with leaving the building and surrounding area behind and keeping the memories with you. It’s hard to imagine myself living out of Duluth- away from the hill and lake, but I know it is something I will eventually do. I hope that my previous moves and inspiration from your article help me readjust when the time comes. As my World History textbook states: “What separated humans from other animal species was their ability to adapt to environmental change, to innovate, and to accumulate their breakthroughs in knowledge” (Tignor, 39). We’ve been learning to cope with change for thousands of years, and that can only provide assurance that I’m not the only one trying to find a way to do so now.
DyAnna,
Your article was incredible. Reading your experience truly resonated with me because my experience moving to Duluth for college was very similar. I am a very family and friend oriented person, so leaving my hometown at the age of 18 was very difficult. A majority of my friend group stayed in Shakopee after graduation, so being one of the only people to leave for four years was terrifying. Looking back now, almost four years later, I wouldn’t change my decision for anything. Duluth became my home away from home. I met new friends that became my family. After being here for a while and becoming familiar with the area, it started to feel more and more like home.
In “Worlds Together Worlds Apart”, it is stated that humans have the ability to adapt to environmental change, to innovate, and to accumulate their breakthroughs in knowledge (Tignor, 39). This innate ability to adapt allowed me to create a life in Duluth and make this my home.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
– Liz
Hello,
Amazing article here i really felt like I connected to it a lot. I was 14 years old when I first left home to move on to a private school so that i could pursue my goals in hockey, ever since then I have not lived a full year at home even though i go home every summer i still miss it a lot. I love the definition you have as to what you feel home is to you. As for me i’m from Canada so now I am a long ways away from home, since ive been away from home for so long it’s getting a lot easier to leave. But at the same time i still miss my family all the time. Thank you for sharing I really enjoyed your post.
Hi DyAnna,
I also felt homesick the instant I stepped foot into my dorm. Like you, I was looking for something to ease that feeling, instead of going to SuperOne, I danced and told my roommate “I’m free!” Being from a town that is a suburb of the Twin Cities, it is quite a bit larger than Roseau. I was able to branch out and make friends pretty quickly, and that helped me feel at home. My World History textbook talks about a group of people, the pastoral nomads (Tignor, 2018). They live and move solely for their livestock and animals. This group of people moves around a lot and have to adapt to the change and their new surroundings just like all of us freshman students. All of us, and the people before us were able to assimilate and make it through these changes which is what I think makes us human. We have the ability to adapt to our new homes and make the best of it, which it seems like you were able to with the help of a simple choice of going to the grocery store.
DyAnna,
I know how this feeling of being homesick can really make you feel down and not feel like doing anything knew. I also remember when I first moved into my dorm I started feeling homesick after about a week. I missed home, but mostly my old friends. Within a couple weeks at college I already had a good group of friends already. I was lucky enough to not have such a long drive back and forth to Duluth. It was only about 2 hours, but I didn’t have a car which made me feel very stuck. I really like how you went to a place that seemed familiar to you. Sometimes this is all that you need in order to feel “at home.” All of the traveling that you had to do made me think of ancient Pastoral Nomads. The traveled over long distances, spreading ideas and goods through Africa and Asia (Tignor, Adelman, Brown, Elman, Liu, Pittman, & Shaw, 2018). I feel like the type of commuting you are doing today is very similar to what they did back then. You are traveling great distances to get an education so you can make a living while they would travel to make a living but are also learning so much on the way. They never had cars or had maps, they learned their own path. I wonder if they also felt homesick and if they dreaded the start of their long journeys back to their families.
Hi DyAnna,
Thank you for sharing your experience. I can relate to the feeling of being homesick. The first night in my college dorm room was terrifying. Being four hours away from home has not been easy for me. It was comforting knowing that one of my good friends from high school came to CSS as well. She was my little piece of home when I needed it. This had me thinking about the transhumant herders and pastoral nomads. When they had to move due to the climate change I wonder how they felt? They had just established a home and now they had to pick up and move to a new area.
Alli
Hi DyAnna,
Thank you for sharing this experience! I am grateful enough to have grown up in Duluth and have my family 20 minutes away from my college house in town, which is very comforting when I need them. That adjustment must’ve been a challenge! In the Tignor textbook Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, it discussed the difficulty that climate change had on living – “desperate for secure water sources and pastures, many transhumant herders and pastoralists migrated onto the highland plateaus …” (Tignor et al., 2018, p. 84). This shows how the constant changing climate impacted their ways of living and ability to herd. They were constantly finding a new ‘home’ to relocate to. I can’t imagine living life this way – I miss Duluth as soon as I leave it! Great work.
Hi DyAnna,
I found comfort reading your post, although I am from a big town I went to college (before transferring to Scholastica) 5 hours away. No one from my hometown was going to college in Madison and I was beyond nervous. I was excited at first but those first couple days and months were hard until I found places and people that felt like home. I never thought this would be a big deal for me as I am not really a homebody and love to explore new places but with the big transition to college I kept feeling like I was away from home and out of my comfort zone. In “Worlds Together Worlds Apart”, it is states, “What separates humans from other animal species was their ability to adapt to environmental change, to innovate, and to accumulate their breakthoughts in knowledge” (Tignor et al., p 34). This shows that we are made to adapt to change even if it takes a little bit. Early humans had to migrate to new places and I am sure that they missed these feelings of “home” too but it is crucial to expand our knowledge and views on the world. This sometimes forces us out of our comfort zone and we have to readjust. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
– Hannah Holien
Hi, DyAnna
I really enjoyed reading this post, it is something that I can really relate to. I to miss home quite a bit. Being from a different country, when I first got here I had multiple times where things starting going down hill. Missing home was the biggest problem that I struggled with. Obviously playing on a hockey team help, because I am always with my brothers, but there was a bunch of times freshman year when this didn’t help. Now that I am in my Junior year, things are a lot better. But, when I have the opportunity to go home i cherish it so much. That flight home though is such a struggle. Anyways, awesome job with this post! I am glad you found something that can make you feel like you are at home.
Kyle
DyAnna,
Thank you for sharing a story that I’m sure is very near and dear to your heart! Home is so so special, and I totally agree that it doesn’t really hit you until you leave and have to settle in your “new” home. My first year of college, before I transferred to Scholastica, I went to a college in Sioux City, Iowa, which is 7 hours away from Duluth (which is my home). At first I was so excited to get away and start doing things on my own, until I discovered how much I missed home and that Iowa was not similar to my home town at all. This was a big reason for me transferring back to Duluth, so I understand where you are coming from!
“They brought with them, however, much-beloved and elaborate rituals, mainly articulated in hymns, rhymes, and explanatory texts, called Vedas, which they retained as they entered a radically different environment and which they relied on to provide a foundation for assimilating new ways” (Tignor et al., 2018, p. 144). This quote ties in to the idea of carrying over your “home” to a new location is indeed possible. As long as you have a solid foundation, anything is possible!
Hello DyAnna,
What a great feeling it is to feel at home. I too would consider Duluth as my home. It was a city where I was first on my own, able to make my own life decisions, and felt like I became my true self. I agree that home is a feeling you miss when it’s not around. Thinking about leaving Duluth is heart wrenching to think about because I do consider it as my home. I love that you were able to make a fast connection with the city by visiting the SuperOne store, because it has close personal connections with your childhood city. I’m sure this transition was difficult and I would like to relate it to individuals living in the Ganges plain around 500 BCE. These individuals had rapidly changing lifestyles as they were adapting to new cities: “The new cities offered exciting opportunities for those who were adventurous. Rural householders who moved into them prospered by importing rice and sugarcane from villages to sell in the markets” (Tignor 172). I could not imagine trying to adapt to these new conditions and making them feel like a permanent home. I’m sure they considered these cities home for much longer than the 4 years we spend in Duluth for college.
Sarah
Tignor, R. L. (2018). Worlds Together Worlds Apart: Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century (5th ed., Vol. 1). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
DyAnna,
I really enjoyed reading your article and felt the personal attachment you have with your childhood in Roseau. I can totally relate to the drive from Duluth back home and how some of it can go fast, some of it slow, and some of it you end up remembering particular details for the rest of your life. My hometown is Brainerd and while the drive from Duluth to Brainerd is not the same as it is from Duluth to Roseau, I found quite a lot of similarities in the drive. For me, driving from Duluth to Mcgregor, the “half-way” point is a snooze. You pass smaller towns like Sawyer, Cromwell, Wright and Tamarack, but nothing really grabs you until you get to Mcgregor when you finally realize you’re already halfway home. Between Mcgregor and Aitkin I remember distinctly a larger road project where you had to narrowly fit between concrete barriers to avoid the construction men, and this area even to this day I always snap back to attention and remember it how it was the first few times I drove to Duluth because it was an area where I had to focus more carefully and so now I’m always aware at this point in the journey.
I was also overcome with a lot of anxiety upon first moving into the dorms here and realizing that I’m far from home. In Tignor’s “Worlds Together, Worlds Apart” he talks about climate change forcing migration and how these migrations “brought new languages and religious practices” (p. 84). I find this to relate a lot to moving into a college dorm, everyone is from a different background and you’re meshed in with a pot of new people from different backgrounds. Everyone has their own beliefs and practices but that’s what makes all of us unique and human at the end of the day. Awesome job on the article DyAnna!
Evan
Dyanna,
That was a fantastic article. I come from a small town about 4 hours away from Duluth and I often find myself going through the same mental process on my drives back. Your reflections on what it means to be home are beautiful and bring me a lot of comfort as I try to decide where to end up after graduation, going back to the small town or staying in Duluth. One thing about going to a new place is that you see the culture around it as an outsider, but after a while, the culture you saw disappears when you dissolve into it and become a part of it. This is a lot like becoming a Roman citizen. Tignor explained that the identity of who Roman citizens were changed were quickly as the empire expanded and by the time the empire fell “the inhabitants of the surviving Eastern parts–who had no connection with Rome, did not speak Latin, and did not dress or eat like the original Romans–still considered themselves ‘Romans'(p.239).”
DyAnna,
I think a lot of us can relate to that “relocation” fear and anxiety. I know I felt it when my parents drove away after dropping me off at my dorm freshman year. And yet now, as I am preparing for graduation and am again relocating, I feel the same fear but this time I am leaving Duluth. In class right now I am reading about the Han and Roman Empires. Both of which were extremely successful in expansion. Our textbook states, “Both new empires united huge land masses and extraordinarily diverse populations” (Tignor et al., 2018, p. 239). I believe that there were a lot of people that were forced to relocate and essentially build an entirely new home due to the vastly expanding empires. What a fearful time that would have been.
Thanks for sharing!
Hello Dyanna!
I knew I had to comment on your North Star Report when I saw the quote: “Home is a feeling you miss when it’s not around.” I instantly felt connected to this, as I’m sure every college student feels at some point. I found your article very touching because I also have spent the last few years figuring out where home truly is. I believe that home is different for a lot of people. For example, nomads from Afro-Eurasia had to search for a home and never seemed to settle. For me, work sometimes feels like home and my parents’ farm holds a place in my heart. I think that it is very relatable that you felt the need to visit SuperOne to feel at home in Duluth, it can be a scary move. Thank you for sharing your experiences! Very well done.
Justice Bauer
Hi DyAnna!
I really enjoyed reading your post and can relate to that feeling of missing home. I have lived in Duluth my whole life but had times when “home” stopped feeling like home. I moved out and created my own sense of “home” on my own. We become so attached to certain places and things it is hard to break away from that. I also believe we can find home within a person. The incredible thing about having someone who feels like home is that no matter where you are if they are with you, you still have a little sense of home. In Worlds together, worlds apart, Tignor spoke about people becoming Romans. “…the inhabitants of the surviving eastern parts- who had no connection with Rome, did not speak Latin, and did not dress or eat like the original Romans- still considered themselves “Romans” in this broader sense” (page 239). This reminds us that no matter who you are or where you are from you can always create your new/own sense of “home.”
Awesome article!
Morgan
Hi DyAnna,
Reading your article made me think of my experience moving from Haiti to Pequot Lakes, MN and then to Duluth for attending school at the College of St. Scholastica. I agree with you on that home can be more than one place. Moving from Haiti to Minnesota was a difficult experience: I left everything I knew to live in a different environment where I didn’t speak the language. But with time, I began to form a connection with the environment and the people. Then, when I moved again, I experienced a minor version of what I emotionally went through coming to the United State. I guess what I am trying to say is that home to me is the places/people that I develop a connection with. Now, Duluth is becoming my home too. Thanks for sharing!
DyAnna,
I’m from Duluth (although technically from a town just outside of Duluth) so I have a very short drive to my parent’s house. I chose to attend Scholastica because I did want to “break out of the bubble” of my hometown like you describe and move out, but to also stay close to my family. I enjoyed your story of how SuperOne brought you some comfort when you first moved in because it was familiar to me–I had similar experiences during my first several months in the dorms when I would go to Target! Whether I was by myself or with college friends it felt almost grounding to be in a place I had frequently shopped at with my mom and sister growing up. Thank you for sharing this article with us!
DyAnna,
I love the way you are easily able to story tell something so beautiful yet so complex. Like you said, home has a different meaning for everyone and to me it is a very powerful thing. I don’t have one home. I don’t even think I have only two. For me my home moves wherever my loved ones are at. My parents whether they are in Minneapolis, Richfield, or Brooklyn Center…that’s home. My family in Mexico both in Mexico City and Guanajuato is my home. Here at CSS with all of my professors and friends. I believe that home is wherever love is shared, and I do agree that it can be anywhere and everywhere.
Thank you
Itzy
Hello DyAnna!
This article was beautiful and very well written. I relate to your feelings of breaking the mold for your family. My two older brothers both went to the University of Minnesota which is only 45 minutes away from my small-town upbringing. Even though I am only 3 hours from home, the distance always feels much more real on the drive to and from Duluth. And although I do not seem to be missing and longing for home, I am always surprised by the relief and comfort I experience coming back for the weekend. I think I try to be very independent, but growing up in a small town, I am always going to be comforted by the idea of home being there with all of my friends and family.
I really enjoyed your article and appreciate your personal story! Thank you!
– Emily