34/2025: Home Away From Home

Image © Jose 2025 (unknown photographer)

I miss home, I miss the space, the feeling of arriving, the corners where my personal things are, that sofa place where I sit to read, the vinyl player and the search for the right music, the morning reflection of the sun in the back of the house trees and the end-of-day sky in the front by the garden. I could go on and on, how we become attached to the little things in a home. Though we have been in the process of house-to-home, it already feels like home. The whole thing is an ecosystem that changes by the hour, like with kids – when you are there every day you don’t notice, but once you go away for a week, you do. When we go back, we will be surprised by the size of the grass, we will notice how some things aged, we will notice new cracks in the minted cement floor, new wrinkles – and it’s all good, all natural.

But I am in my home away from home, a home that’s been mine for many more years, a home that is really not my home, but feels like it. I’m at the beach where my grandmother, and my mother, and now I and my children have come, a beach that represents the closest thing to home for someone like me who has moved more than 25 times (link). When I questioned myself where I should celebrate my 60th birthday, where did I feel at home, I chose this beach. I conceived my son at this beach, my daughter learned how to enjoy the waves here, there are friends and family I only see when I come to this beach, so this is home.

I remember staying in different homes at the beach. I remember when people could place their tents by the entrance where we cross the bridge that is underwater in the winter. I remember the many homes that were demolished because one day a local mayor thought he wanted to leave a mark. I remember the many lives of the restaurant at the end of the beach, and the four generations of Rhodesian ridgebacks a neighbor insists on having. I remember the road here when it was not fixed, and I remember crying when I came through the recently burned forest fire so many years ago. I remember it all, and it all makes up my feeling of this place as home.

The home I have stayed in for the last 20 years belongs to a family member who lovingly keeps the place immaculate and rents it out competitively to friends and family. It is a modest home, fisherman style, right in front of the beach. We literally cross the street and are on the beautiful golden sand, and we sit in front of the house to see the sunset in the ocean, always golden, always unique.

I make jokes that this beach is like my wives (yes, plural), temperamental. One day it might wake up in deep fog and open to a sunny afternoon, the next day the opposite. You might get entire days where you can’t see the water, just hear the waves roar. Other days the sun is so bright and shiny you can’t stay out more than an hour. I’ve had days of full rain in the summer, and at night you always need a jacket, or two. In a lot of ways, it’s not a beach you recommend because you can end up spending a week here and just get the dark side of her temperament. But for so many reasons, this is my beach, this is home.

The house itself is a homey place that has suffered many changes and improvements but never lost its character, its charm. The family that owns it has accountants who are artists at heart (their work on the walls proves it), designers, homemakers, uncles who help maintain and paint, a host of people who keep the place alive and clean when no one is looking. We arrive in the summer to find it freshly painted, spotless, bed and shower linens all neatly packed in plastic bags, everything ready for the stay. I remember the last three versions of the house – they added areas, changed layout, windows and doors, added beds – but it has always felt the same, like home. The place is simple but full of gorgeous details. The paintings and sketches are done by the father and son. The furniture might be IKEA, but there is a linen piece on it made locally by someone they know. The bed is ancient but has seen and felt a lot through the years. The kitchen is now renovated, but the stuff in it is still familiar. The outside area has a grill made the old-fashioned way, crooked and bent by the many fires it has seen. The bathroom is renovated, but you still can’t throw paper in the toilet because it has a septic tank.

We sit here at night with the windows open, listening to the roaring sound of the waves, especially now with the new moon, when the water jumps over to the valley area and creates ponds for the kids to enjoy. We wake up to the salty mist that leaves everything on the drying ropes wet. It all feels familiar, it all feels like home.

But I still miss home, my other home.