HOUSE - HOME
HIŠA - DOM 
CASA - CASA
building - affection

Hello to everyone, Tanja's here. I still hear the buzz from the last letter and my mind travels into the amazing bee world. What surprised me was the bees' ability to adapt: they use the same scheme to build their house but meanwhile they adapt the whole house-structure to the place their findings. It can be a rounded hole, a tiny space between two doors, a box, and so on. As spiders they already know how they want the house to look like, and then, they find a compromise between the available space and their needs.

Hall

Why do I think about this?
Simply, I moved into another house, again, last April. I didn’t move to another city but, still, I realised that changing house, packing everything, thinking about how I want to organise my stuff, realise that I have too much stuff that I don’t strictly need, (but) buying new objects, sheets, furnitures and so on…getting used to a new setup, remembering on which side I should go off the bed to not panic in the morning mind-confusion... All this moves something in me, it touches some deep chords about myself in a society and in a community.

Stairs

I think that all this moving, all this living in different situations made me being in a state where I often search for a house, or actually a home, a house that can also be felt as a home. And so I made a list of every house I was living in and I tried to think if, when I was living there, I was actually feeling at home.

Moreover I start wondering what makes a house also a home?
Which is the balance between the available house(s) and a home feeling?
Which is the compromise that can make me feel good in a homy situation?

Kitchen

Everyday life, both basic human needs and personal habits, is shaped by our way of living. We create our own rhythm which becomes our routine. I consider having a routine as something that gives you a feeling of being at home. So I’d say that one first “homy factor” could be stability or routine mood. Of course this is influenced by the other “homy factor” points.

Then, I'd also add the economic aspect and so, in a broad sense, if you can work and collect things for living, in the place where you live. It can be a job where you earn money or a job where you exchange stuff, it can be far from home or really near. It can be close to your house but really stressful to reach and so on, with all the possible options linked to the “providing stuff for your needs” world.

One of the most important points in the list is the healthy sensation of well-being in the house: I’m thinking about structural aspects that give you a comfortable living state (a flat or an autonomous house, with the garden or not, two floors, pets?, big or small,..) but also about landscape aspects - do you prefer mountains, city, sea, etc? So how does the architecture of the house and the close-by environment influence you?

The other crucial point to develop the feeling of home is the affection factor, the care dose, the community sensation, friends, family-like relationships. In many cases people make the place.

Of course this is my reflection and I'd be curious to know what you all think about this :)
What makes you feel that the house where you are living in is your home?
Maybe my percentage of all these factors at the moment could be translated as 40 affection, 40 well-being, 10 and 10…

Livingroom

In Italian it is pretty difficult to explain the concept of home with one word because we use one term for both the building and the place of affections.

For English language, Oxford dictionary says:

• the house or flat that you live in, especially with your family
• the town, district, country, etc. that you come from, or where you are living and that you feel you belong to
• used to refer to a family living together, and the way it behaves

Thinking that the language that you use may be an extension of your person, I wonder if the distinction home-house - or not having it - has some consequences in society.

Home and House meaning:

Both the words “house” and “home” found their way into modern English from Proto-Germanic. Khusan, for “house” was changed into hus in Old English, and stems from the verb “to hide.” Both words imply shelter, which explains the use of the term “hide” to mean animal skin. While many animals are at home in their skin, throughout our evolution, humans have developed places that go beyond shelter: we have made homes.

“Home” comes from the Proto-Germanic khaim, which differed from the meaning of “house” in those times as it does today. The khaim, or ham, as it traveled into Old English, meant a residence as opposed to simply a shelter. Its Proto-Indo-European root kei, meaning to lie down or settle, rendered this term more inviting and inclusive.

Bedroom

List of houses where I lived:

Premariacco - family home house - 19 years

Bologna - first one, from house to home - 2 years

Erasmus Granada - temporary home - 6 months 

Bologna - home (Cami) - 1 year

               - Without a house but feeling at home - 2 months

               - house and home - 1 year

Milano - just a house - 1 year

Eramsus Ljubljana - still in doubt, was a going back to home maybe - 6 months

Covid Time, Cividale: two different houses - home - 7 months

Topolò - home - 1 month and half

Milano - 1 year - home (cat❣️)

Trieste, Roiano - 1 year

             City - 2 months 

13 beds

2 + 18 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 3 + +1 = 36 and more roommates/housemates

A side garden - some thoughts in the sunset

I still don’t have a house in Topolò but it is true that I have a home there. When I go to Topolò I actually go home.
But I miss the building - a house.

When I was a child I used to draw the bedroom of my dreams. I was using the top view to show how it could be: I wanted a pool and a cinema area inside. I loved the idea of having a big room to be able to host friends.

I think that the house where you are born shapes you somehow. For me this means that I now know that having a garden or a big terrace it’s really important for my mental health and well-being.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this topic, let me know yours!

Miao Miao

Tani

Happening these days:

Friday, June 23rd → Vida will present Robida's activities at the symposium Stretch the Edge in San Marino.

Sunday, June 25th → Radio Robida day, S02E95 with some special people joining (Jack Bardwell, Ola Korbanska, Kim Lang & more).

Sunday, July 2nd → Senjam v Topoluovim - village traditional festivity which starts with the mass and procession in the morning, followed by a collective lunch in front of Izba.