Home (?) again.

It all started the second time I went to Japan last year.  The locals whom I had gotten to know well, the gang of men who have taken me in as one of their own, said this to me at different times:  "Welcome home."  This greeting, reserved and used when someone close comes "home" has been repeated over and over.  In fact, every time I go back to Ofunato, indeed every time I go back to Japan, someone says this to me:  "Welcome home."

Part two of this happened last night.  At a meeting of women here in Boston, I hear it again:  "Welcome home."

In Japanese, the word is "okaeri."  Mothers say it to their children and husbands as people come home from school and work.  I grew up with it.  The translation I use is "welcome home" but it could just as easily be "you're back" (with the insinuation that follows "I'm glad you're back").  The concept personifies a lovely combination of politeness and endearment.  I like it.

I'm flattered I'm "welcomed back" whenever I return to Japan, and to Ofunato.  That people say this to me indicates to me I'm allowed to consider Japan home.  What happens then when the same okaeri phrase is used at me in Boston?  I'm welcomed home again.  So then, where's home?

I've long ago decided home is wherever I am at that time.  I can be living out of a suitcase, but for the time I'm there, that's home.  I also go home after living out of said suitcase.  That's also home.  This way of thinking works for me.  Convenient?  Perhaps.  I've learned to adopt and adapt. 

So, I'm welcomed home in Boston, and will surely be welcome back once I get back to Japan.  It's lovely to have homes all over the place.  The ability to consider home as wherever I am at any given moment, and then having that validated by the "welcome back"s I receive whenever I do return--I'm lucky.