Home is an idea, a necessity, a motivation. It is something all creatures make in some way. It is something that people fight and die for. It is as essential to life as bread.

As I roamed around, camping in the van, staying with my kids, visiting friends and having them put me up for a night or two, renting an occasional hotel room or bnb, I noticed that “home” can be entirely moveable. It must be entirely moveable. That’s how essential it is. Without a familiar set of walls, when almost every day is filled with the unfamiliar, or at its worst, with the fear of violence and destruction, one must keep a small home fire burning within. 

When I’m out in the woods, hiking, I’m trained on returning “home” to the van at the end of it. That’s where my things are, where I prepare my meals, where I lie down to rest. That last part is the key. I think about a coyote in its den, a nesting bird, the beehive. Home is the place where a living thing can feel safe enough to fall asleep. That critical and true rest only comes when you don’t have to keep one eye open, where you can let your guard down and let the goddess Athena pour “sweet sleep into your eyes.”

The other fundamental need that home provides for is a sense of belonging and connection. Connection to place is important as is connection to people. In most cases, they are intertwined. But after testing it out, the feeling of a sense of belonging on Grant Street drained out of me. That home has moved on and so have I. But moving on leaves a person rootless, free, unmoored, liberated, displaced, mobile. At first, I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom, but after a few months, the freedom was deeply tinged with an unsettled lack of certainty. The whole world is dealing with that, of course, so dredging the shores for some kind of certainty, connection, and grounding is a common state of being.

Which brings me to one of the greatest tales of searching for home and connectedness ever written, Homer’s Odyssey.

Decades ago I set myself an ambition of shuffling the classics into my reading list. That was before I kind of stopped reading altogether, so I’m way behind on my agenda. It’s now been years since I read on a regular basis. Not proud of that. I used to read every night before bed, like many people. Despite the library I owned, full of unread books, I fell into the easy habit of screen time, night after night, prey to the trap of the series, of the allure of the “glowing rectangle.” 

Partly inspired by necessity—so often not having any internet or even cell connection on my camping trips—I took to reading again (and writing). Once dark fell and the fire burned to embers, it was time to cozy up in bed. I had my light situation figured out. I had the right arrangement of pillows and down blankets, and the quiet of nature all around. So I picked up Emily Wilson and Homer back in April and put it into the rotation with Il Gattopardo (The Leopard in Italian), Native American Testimony, and The Golden Thread (a history of the world through an account of textiles).

Back to Homer.

Last year, I learned of a recent translation of this classic—the first by a woman (Emily Wilson) into English from the ancient Greek. She offers a version of Odysseus’ epic journey that is, if not exactly feminist, at least more honoring of a view of female characters that are complex, varied, and interesting.

For instance, by Wilson’s telling, the sirens were a dangerous lure not because of their unbridled sexuality, but because they maintained all of the knowledge of the past and present, including every event, every fateful loss in war, which the ship’s men were desperate to know. Vague memories of that bastard Charleston Heston filtered through as I read how Odysseus poured wax into the crew’s ears to protect them from the sirens’ song and had them lash him to the mast, promising to tighten the reins if he begged for release. 

I gradually made my way through Wilson’s 100-page introduction. Although dense, it was interesting and full of ideas to digest. I was struck by the scholarship and dedication it must have taken to learn ancient Greek well enough to translate one of the most celebrated and iconic pieces of literature in the western canon.

The story itself is readable and engaging. I enjoyed the storytelling and learned more detail and nuance in Odysseus’ tales of his monstrous obstacles. And that’s after surviving the Trojan War.

As I made my way through the hero’s trials and near deaths, while he encountered ever more strange and unforeseeable terrors, I related. He was surviving all of it, sometimes barely, with the unsinkable goal of returning home to his beloved wife and son, father, and estate, where he was safe and where he belonged. 

Odysseus stayed in regular conversation with the gods, especially Athena, who was solidly in his court and could shape shift to suit the situation. It was she that would offer sweet sleep, negotiate with Poseidon—who wanted to kill Odysseus for blinding his son, the Cyclops—and show up at all crucial moments. There is still a third of the story still to go even after he succeeds in reaching his home island of Ithaca, because he has to disguise himself, slaughter all the ne’er-do-well suitors that Penelope has been fending off, clean up the mess, and learn how to convince the skeptical that he was the true master. He does that by revealing a scar and relating stories that nobody but he could know. 

I reached the rather abrupt end of the story on September 2, two days after the 25th anniversary of Lee’s death. In some way, I feel I’ve been searching for a sense of home since that event exiled me into the wilderness of widowhood, long before my time. How could I ever feel safe again? But needs prevail, and I found way after way. I had kids to think about, and you just do what you have to do. Beyond that, I realized that, every day, I had the choice of whether to look ahead or behind.

On September first, I ventured out for yet another round of house hunting. I saw a magical place, right on a sweet little lake, in an area where I had bid on and lost another house that I really liked. This one was truly amazing, far nicer and with far more of what I was looking for than anything else I had seen online or in person during the last several months—a peaceful beauty and a clean, well-lighted sanctuary, close enough to people and town, but with enough space to have more peace and nature. 

It was, indeed, love at first sight. I kept telling myself that I would know instinctively when the time and place were right, that I could believe in the gods and goddesses to lead me, if I’d just trust in the force. I think that’s what I did. The day after I finished Odysseus’ tale, I learned that the sellers had accepted my offer, and as long as the process did not present any snags, this lovely lake house would be mine. 

The thought of setting down some new roots in among some very old and giant cedars had me looking forward to lying down there to sleep, safe enough to relax to a degree that has not been possible for many years.