Home is where the heart is...

I challenge you to find a saying that is more of a cliche in the American vernacular. To so many, "home is where the heart is" represents a warm sentiment enabling us to establish a sense of comfort in the face of unfamiliarity and stress. Yet over the past few days, I've realized that this phrase and the feelings it embodies, are much more complex than I had at first believed.

My time in Scotland is almost over, and not a moment too fast. The mystique and excitement of the castles, cathedrals, and brilliant scenery had faded. Maybe this is because my parents have simply run out of things to do. This seems rather interesting considering our initial excitement of traveling across the pond and our endless lists of things to do and places to see. However, what seemed impossible--that we would ever get sick of Scotland--seems to be occurring. It's not that we don't like this place, but more so that we just need to go home. I wonder whether the relative familiarity of the UK has something to do with it. I feel that it would be easier to get overwhelmed in a country where a different language was spoken and where an entirely different culture prevailed, yet I feel that one would not yearn for home as much. No longer am I struck by wonder but just sheer monotony, and I wish this to end as quickly as possible.

For almost 5 weeks, Bridge of Allan has been where our hearts were, literally, and thus it has been home. Despite it being someone else's house--a fact which is still a little bit weird--we have made it our own. We've bought groceries, we've walked down the street as if we've lived here for years and years, and it's been the bed, the living room, and the kitchen that I am the most familiar with.

Then there's the more figurative "home." Like millions of people across the world, my family ties its collective ancestry to these islands. While the McCalls and the Thompsons are not relative newcomers to the US there is a wonderful feeling of going home which occurs when one steps foot on these ancient lands. Last weekend, more than 40,000 people attened the Homecoming Celebration in Edinburgh, people just like us--though many were far more obsessed with family heritage, tartan, and kilts, as I--descended on Holyrood Park to gather as one. There were Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, and more, all of whom felt a connection to this land.

That sentiment of going home was matched yesterday. During a recent geneaology conference which my dad attended in Glasgow he discovered the home town of a line of Campbells (my great-grandmother's surname) who came from Kilmartin, a tiny village in Argyll--a county along Scotland's western coast. Thus, it was necessary for us to travel there to see it for ourselves. The culmination of the journey was finding the gravestones of many Campbells, most related directly to us, who had called that tiny place home for hundreds of years. While much of the excitement of tracing one's family is lost on me I came to appreciate that sense of going home. While I had never, and may never again see Kilmartin, I know that that and many other sites around Scotland and Northern Ireland, are places that my family have called home in the past. While many of these sites have no contemporary connection to my family knowing that your bloodline can be traced to a particular place thousands of miles away is something that I hope all people can one day experience.

So what does this all mean? I seem to be rambling on, probably a result of fatigue and hunger. Yet, what I'm really saying is that it's time to go home. This is exactly what I was feeling five weeks ago, as we got on the plane to come here. I love Scotland, I love its people, its scenery, its sport. Yet Scotland is not my home. I may feel the twang of ancient family connection, the love of Rangers, the love Irn Bru, and the love of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Yet I'm an American, my home is in Maine.

I feel it to be an oversimplifcation to state that one must only call one place home. My ancestral home is here, my permamnent home is there. While I will return to Scotland in January for five whole months the sentiment will be must different. I will be here surounded with people my own age, not stuck with two parents for the entire time. I will be free to roam and explore without encumbrances. And most of all I will know what to expect. Until then, the time has come to be reunited with friends and family, house and job, and settle back in to the good old boring life which awaits.