Xinyu Zheng

Professor Shuckra-Gomez

CAS WR100 - Paper 3

10 December 2015

Emotion Makes Home

Theano S. Terkenli says in Home as a Region that humans occupy space and

use symbols to transform it into place; they are creatures of habit who appropriate

place and context as home (Terkenli 325). For human beings, home is a place that

locates emotions and physical bodies, and that fulfills fundamental individual and

group needs (Terkenli 325). For most people, home can be a place where their family

is, where they grow up, and where they feel a sense of belonging. However, home is

not only a place related to emotion, providing the sense of familiarity. It also has

physical functions that enable people to live well.

During my WR100 class discussions, my classmates and I talked a lot about our

definition of home. The way my classmates defined the concept of home inspired me

a lot. Jerry Ma, who is from a city with exceedingly hot temperatures in China, said

home means memory, family, and summer. Jean Park, who is from Korea, said home

is a place to fulfill comfort. Both included physical attributes in their definitions of

home. The relationship between people and their homes is like that of ships and

harbors; home has physical functions to release their tiredness, give them peace and

renew their energy.

Physically, people call a place home because they feel completely relaxed and
comfortable in this place. To create this comfortable situation, people will try to set

every single thing in a familiar order to enable them to relax after working, studying,

or doing other stressful things. Like a heat preserving cup, a beautiful bouquet, or

warm slippers, every detail adds convenience and comfort to peoples lives. All these

details with a specific intention make a house more appropriate to a specific person.

At the same time they are physically more like homes to them.

To provide a better idea of the definition and expression of home, our professor

arranged a tour of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). Aided by our guide, I

found this concept to be fully expressed by a interior designer, Cornelius Browns

interior design, which was exhibited in the Brown-Pearl Hall (Gallery LG35). As a

famous architectural elements, this interior plan of Mr.Browns home, which was

located in a small town in Essex County, in the northern part of Boston, in the 18th

century. Our tour guide compared the sizes of the window and fireplace, which

impressed me immediately. She told us that the builder gave this room only one

relatively small window, and built a much larger fireplace, about five times the size of

the window. This difference in size was familiar to me. My house in Boston has a
similarly small window and a large heater, although I have a heating system and not a

fireplace. Our guide explained that the designer limited wind leaks by having just one

small window. This helped keep the house warm during the cold winter in Boston.

The designer also placed a thick mantle over the bed, and this is another method for

maintaining heat at night. These delicate design features are all based on a specific

living situation, and they create an intimate connection between people and their

houses. For instance, when the owner of this house came back from work during a

Boston winter, the warmth made the person feel physically comfortable. These

physical functions of a dwelling enable its residents to live at a proper temperature

and create a comfortable situation that can never be achieved by emotional means.

In addition to the physical layout of a home, dcor can also create the feeling of

being home. About this part of the home, I agree with Terkenli that ... it can be

depicted as one aspect of human emotional territory (Terkenli 327). People feel

related to a place because some objects in the place are projections of feelings,

memories, and emotion. If you love music, you may buy a CD player or stereo

equipment; if you are a fan of someone, you may put some posters of that person on

the wall; if you are strict about order, you may buy storage boxes to put everything in

its place. Every dcor has a specific purpose, not only for physical convenience but

for emotional comfort.

 Visiting new place with specific purpose always brought plenty of inspiration to

us, and besides the MFA, our professors also planned another tour to the Isabella

Stewart Gardner Museum (the Gardner Museum). The Gardner Museum is a

representation of how a home built with full of emotion. When I visited this museum,

which was actually Mrs. Stewarts home, I was first attracted by the marvelous

courtyard. As background, our guide told us that Mrs. Stewart had lived a tragic life,

even though she had been born into a very rich family. Her first child and only son,

John L. Gardner III, died of pneumonia in March 1865. To release the pain of losing a

child, Mr. and Mrs. Gardner took a trip around the world. This released her pain and

sorrow, but in 1898, her husband, John L. Gardner II, died suddenly. His death

brought her sorrow and made her realize that she needed a place to house their

collections, which related to both her husband and their son. Her tragic life made her a

sensitive person who was longing for the sense of belonging, and as a collector, she

hired some famous architects to design her house as a museum. They arranged her

home based on the Renaissance palaces of Venice, which she had visited on a
romantic journey with her husband. They selected every dcor for a specific purpose.

For instance, a representative memorial of her son was set in the courtyard, which she

could see directly from the French window of her living room. This was a way to

cherish her lost son, and was also a representation of emotional dcor. Furthermore,

these professional designers built the home to display her collections, which related to

memories of times she had spent with her husband. Everything was displayed in a

designated position, order and even direction, and this became proof of her love for

and reminiscences of her husband. Since she lived an extremely lonely life without

the people she loved, this museum, which was full of memories and emotion, might

have been the only place Mrs. Stewart could call home. Items are related to memories,

and objects from the last place you called home can make you feel related to an

unfamiliar place, which will become your new home.

Our professor placed us in groups of two so we could hear opinions from people

with different cultural backgrounds than ours. My partner, Helena McCoy from New

York, gave me a deeper recognition of the relationship between home, emotion, and

people. She talked about her feeling of being a part of home, both emotionally and

physically, in her poem, I Am Home.

I Am Home

An old pair of shoes.

A worn out guitar.

"I am home."

The hum of silence.

 The fading of scars.

"I am home."

Stories in my hands.

A warmth in my heart.

"I am home."

Helena explained that in her poem she wanted to express how and why she feels

that she is a part of her home. She told me that her mother had carefully planned the

position of the furniture and the decor in her home, so that, like an old pair of shoes

or a worn out guitar, she is also an inseparable part of home, which physically and

emotionally belongs to the place called home. From her poem and explanation, I

understood that as people, we not only live in a place named home, but we can also be

parts of the home, and as nature, human beings are connected with these features from

homes. Due to her daring figuration in her poem, I connected the decors that have

emotional and physical backgrounds with ourselves. I asked Helena if she had set up

her dorm room like her home, to feel familiarity and a sense of nostalgia. Her answer

was positive: If there were enough space, I would set up my dorm like my home

even more than now. Following up on this thought, I asked a similar question during

a discussion in my writing class: In a strange room, if you find something from your

home, such as a poster, a CD player, or a teddy bear, will you feel more comfortable

in this situation? My classmate Doris answered yes, and explained that she had

brought her old pillow from her home in China to Boston, because this old pillow

makes her feel connected to her family and her old home, and it also releases the
nervousness of living in a new place alone.

Since Doris and Helena have a similar opinion about home, which I agree with, I

will recall a poem of mine. Like Helenas I Am Home, my poem, A Place Named

Home, was also written for a task assigned by Professor Gomez for the sake of

expressing and explaining how we feel and think about home.

A Place Named Home

In the moonlight,

I look at myself and think of old times.

I can see the beautiful spring,

I realized my hair is white.

There is a familiar voice from childhood,

Is old, but still beautiful.

Hiding my longing for home,

Deeply in my heart.

Home, a place you never leave,

Can never come back.

In my poem, I illustrated that home is a place with memories, in a traditionally

Chinese obscure tone and words. At first, I recalled my childhood that my family

always had time to be together, and the adults talked about their lives under the

beautiful moonlight. Then I imagined how my future would be and what would

happen after I getting old, but still alone and far away from home. So that I started my

poem with a line, In the moonlight, I look at myself and think of old times. In
Eastern culture, people tend to write some objects, scenery or action of other creatures

rather than directly describe their inner emotion. This usage that I used moonlight to

imply my longing for home and old time, shows that everything can be a

representation of emotion. Like shoes for Helena, a pillow for Doris, and moonlight

for me, these objects that are related to old memories can give people the sense of the

familiar and make them recall these old memories. Terkenli said, The experience of

home from a nonhome perspective, that is, from outside the home, is significant to the

idea of home (Terkenli 328). Similarly, I wrote of Home, a place you never leave,

can never come back, expressing a similar opinion.

As a place, home is the most fitting place to live for many people, with seemingly

perfect features because of the emotional connection between people and their homes.

However, home is not a place at first, but this emotional connection drives people to

perfect the place to fit all their demands, both physical and emotional. Over time, after

trying to perfect these homes, people finally feel that they are part of the home. Some

objects represent memories of your family, and they will build a connection between

you and this new place. This new connection is the key to creating a new place to be

your home. Home is a place, which you create, both physically and emotionally, to be

the most appropriate place for your heart and body to obtain release.

Work Cited

Brown Cornelius. Brown-Pearl Hall. [c. 1704] Structural Frame. Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston.
 http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/brown-pearl-hall-38237

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Courtyard. Photograph. Webshots. n. p. Web. 1

December 2015.

http://www.gardnermuseum.org/collection/artwork/1st_floor/courtyard/courtyard?

filter=room:1791

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. About Isabella Stewart Gardner. n. p. WebMD,

n. d. Web. 1 December 2015.

http://www.gardnermuseum.org/about/history_and_architecture

Terkenli, Theano S. Home as a Region. Geographical Review 85.3 (1995): 324-34.

Web.