Share your story!

This question emerged through conversations with customers and vendors at the 32nd Street Farmers Market in Baltimore, MD. Upon learning that I had recently moved to the city, they naturally wanted to know where I came from. At the time, I had recently moved from living with my parents in Cape Cod, where home tastes like salt water. My answer to this question has diversified as I've lived in different places with different people. Home tastes like collard greens. Calamansi with steamed rice. Eating out of the same bowl. 

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I started the Story Seeds stands based on the premise that telling stories about the people and places we call home would foster a greater sense of belonging and responsibility for their wellbeing, and that it would encourage us to invest ourselves more deeply as stewards of their future. I've asked this question now in many different settings, including at national conferences, community workshops, and in classrooms. I always emphasize that "home" can be interpreted broadly, to include any place or people who make you feel those qualities of "at- homeness." Each time, I'm amazed by how this simple question can elicit such rich details about people's identities, values, and how they make meaning. When shared in group settings, many people have reflected that they came away from feeling a stronger connection to each other. 

Although we're sharing these stories in a virtual space, I hope that they facilitate a stronger sense of belonging not to any particular group or home, but to our larger interconnectedness. I've found the Tagalog word kapwa to describe this best -- "our relationship with others who share the same space with us."* As I write in Story Seeds: Growing Home at the Farmers Market, "It is 'space' interpreted broadly, beyond our home, city, and even country. It's a recognition of our shared humanity and of a home that's beyond a physical space" (86). 
 

So...what tastes like home to you? ​

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​References:

*Gonzalvo, BJ. "On (Not) Losing Kapwa in Translation." Inheritance, 19 Apr. 2022, https://www.inheritancemag.com/stories/on-not-losing-kapwa-in-translation.