CHAPTER 2 POST 3 ▫️ “Home is where my habits have a habitat”

I have a confession to make.

Over the past three weeks, I have watched a LOT of movies. 

Last month, a new installment of a very popular movie franchise was released. The last installment had been released two years ago, but I still hadn’t seen that one yet. So Ashton and I decided to get our movie-nerd on and watch all previous eight movies before heading to the theater for Number 9. 

Why on earth would we do this (other than the fact that we are, at heart, movie nerds)? I was thinking about it on the way home from the theater Saturday night when it hit me. The reason is bigger than the franchise; it’s about home. 

The reason is tradition. 

When the first movie of this particular franchise came out, my little-kid mind was blown. I had never been affected by a movie in such a profound way. I know my family was amazed too, because it became the first movie we saw twice in the theater. My brothers and I started playing out scenes together in the back yard to pass the summers as we waited impatiently for the sequel...and the sequel after that. I imagined I was one of the heroes, and on difficult days, I would look skyward and pretend that my real home was somewhere up there, in a galaxy far away. Needless to say, this movie—and those that followed—became a huge part of our daily vocabulary. 

Naturally, we grew up, had some real-life experiences, and balanced out a bit. But that part of my life is still there; not burning as furiously, but still there. I hold on to it for one important reason: tradition. 

This movie provided my brothers and I with a new way to relate to each other. It gave us a language. It gave us a platform for play, for analysis, for retreat and refuge. That platform became so entrenched that it still exists to this day. We can (and do) speak in catchphrases, movie quotes, and home-brewed jokes based on the characters that were our childhood playmates. And when I feel homesick, I know that if I text a prompt to my brother, he will text back a catchphrase, a quote, or a joke that will immediately make me feel understood and accepted. 

Traditions play such a huge role in our concepts of home. I imagine every home has a family with its own “micro-culture”, centered around something that touches the hearts of each member and binds those hearts together. Families, in turn, form communities with their own cultures, which are influenced by each family unit within them. For example: in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the village of Anatevka has a distinct culture, and its traditions are so much a part of that culture that there’s a whole musical number about it. In the prologue to the song, the lead protagonist, Tevye, explains to the audience: “Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many, many years.” He gives examples of some of their traditions, and then says: “Because of our traditions, everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do.” 

Do we have traditions that help us keep our balance, that tell us who we are and what we should do? While musing on this question, I started mentally ticking off traditions that Ashton and I started together after we got married. It became tradition to celebrate our anniversary with travel every year. We watched the Academy Awards each year without fail, home-printed ballots completed and in hand; and somehow, nachos became our traditional Oscar-night dinner. There were other traditions too, mostly small ones (like sharing a cup of coffee together in the mornings to start our day). As I collected this list of beautiful little rituals, I realized that many of them have been changed or neglected over the past couple of years. We haven’t been able to travel as we would have liked for our anniversary. The Academy Awards haven’t been as high on our priority list, for a number of reasons. And I recently discovered that I can’t tolerate coffee as well as I used to (which wasn’t great to start out with). These may be insignificant in the grand scheme of our universe, but the truth is that each one of these realizations brought to my consciousness things that had unconsciously contributed to my feeling unbalanced, unknown, and directionless. 

When we move, when our circumstances change, when something we relied on as a foundation is shaken or removed, these traditions, big or small, can help us hang on. They ground us, remind us that we have something we can fall back on, and provide a sense of familiarity in otherwise unfamiliar territory. 

It’s a romantic notion to think that we should have traditions that link us back with our family—with home—for generations behind us, and that we will carry that torch and bring them forward for generations to come. The truth is, it’s never too late to start a tradition. They have to start somewhere, right? Starting a tradition can give us a feeling of control in a new environment, or a sense that we are guiding our changing circumstances. It can put us in the position of author rather than reader, of director rather than audience. 

So I am trying on new traditions. I’ve come up with a few, and time will tell whether they stick. It’s been fun so far, and in the process, I’ve been finding myself feeling a little more at home.

Do you have any traditions that make you feel at home? Share them with us in the comments!

Post title credit: Fiona Apple. Thanks, Fiona!