Home is where the laptop is?

I got word today [which was actually last week] from the medical director that, if I can produce my nurse license from Massachusetts, I can be granted a nurse license in Nepal. This means a shift in responsibility at the clinic, from 90% staff education/10% patient care to 50% staff education/50% patient care. This also means that I’ll have greater responsibility for my work, which right now happens directly under the supervision of a physician but presumably would not were I licensed here. No, I’m not sure of the particulars, except that the clinic is paying for it and it may happen Monday if my parents can get me the required documentation by Sunday (no pressure!). Never fear, you, my loyal reader, will know shortly after it happens. (Update: No, it has not happened yet, though today was the "Monday" to which I referred in the previous sentence. *sigh* such is life in Nepal.)

Perhaps it is this additional layer of complexity to my trip, perhaps a natural course of development regardless of licensure, either way, I am only two weeks into this trip and already I’m not looking forward to going home. Though I’m not quite sure where that is, anyway.

Is home where I am? Where my mail goes? Where my stuff is? If it is the latter, then I have three homes: the Shechen Clinic; 9 Mooney Rd., USA; and McCarthy Self-Service Storage. But defining home according to possessions seems to demean my human life. So the saying goes, ”home is where the heart is”, and that’s certainly not in a storage locker! Nor does it seem right to define home by the United States Postal Service, as trustworthy and reliable as it is. So that leaves personal geographical location.

By that definition, home is Shechen Clinic, Room #1, Boudha, Kathmandu, Nepal. But this presents a new quandary; Friday and Saturday, does home become the spare room in Mark’s apartment? Or does “home” remain in Boudha while I visit elsewhere? Even as I write it, I know this is the case. But why?

Perhaps home does relate to possessions, at least to some degree; if I can literally take my heart with me, but retain the feeling of home in a place, it must, but which possession(s)? Obviously nothing that’s in the storage unit a continent plus an ocean away. Same for those at my parent’s house. So, something in Nepal, then. Of those belonging I have here, I usually tote my laptop around, so that’s not it. My sleeping bag? My large backpack? Not really emotionally connected to either of those. Perhaps, rather than a physical object, it’s actually a sense.

A sense of possession – whether permanent, as in owning a home, or temporary, as in renting a dwelling, may just be the birth of a “home”. Where does one derive such a sense? Come to think of it, what helped me feel grounded and “home” shortly after arriving in Nepal was Mark’s giving me a key to his flat. It didn’t occur to me until I subsequently received a key to my room at the Clinic, but having a key (a possession!) to a place confers ownership; with the receipt of those keys, I claimed not one, but two residences in Nepal. That’s twice the number of homes I have in the US – no wonder I’m sad at the thought of leaving!