Anne, Laura, and I have returned back to Cincinnati after spending some time back home with family and friends. Katie doesn't return until after the new year so it'll be just the three of us until then.

It's good to be back in Walnut Hills and not living out of a travel bag. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the time. However, there's something to be said for knowing exactly where your toothbrush is and not needing to worry about liquids in containers being three ounces or smaller. For me, Cincinnati is where I feel settled right now. This is different than saying that it feels like home, because it's still not quite there yet. By the time I left my previous BVS assignment I could honestly say that I felt at home with the people and area there. Cincy is still a work-in-progress.

"Home" has become an interesting, evolving idea for me. I still refer to my hometown, Nokesville, VA, as being my home. In reality, I don't recognize a fair number of people around town anymore and I generally need a docent if I'm gonna venture more than a couple miles from the Bear household due to added, rerouted, or renamed roads. The new shopping centers and subdivisions don't help a whole bunch, either. The family and friends that I still know there allow it to still be a place to where I can return. More and more it's the people, not the place, that make Nokesville home.

There are plenty of ways to describe "home". Most of them would have Nokesville qualify for that title. What I'm missing right now is a place that I can consider my home based on these terms:

- I don't feel like an outsider at local events.
- If I plant something in the yard I'll be around long enough to see it through an entire growing season and, if it's a perennial, watch it return next year.
- The neighbors around me aren't complete strangers, even if we don't talk all that much.

This isn't all-inclusive, but it's a general idea of what I have in mind. I know it's a bit of a double standard with my current vagabond tendancies but that's what I'd kinda like to find.

Living here in Cincy has often been a struggle when considering these criteria in that we know that our time with BVS is one year and then we'll likely be moving on to... whatever. It's difficult to try to feel that this is the place I can call home when I know that by the time December rolls around next year I'll likely be living somewhere that is not here*. It seems intriguingly ironic that by choosing to come here to work at a shelter I have, once again, become homeless in a way. I know it sounds extreme and I'm fully aware that I'm nowhere near being homeless in the traditional sense of the word - it's simply a thought.


I hope y'all enjoy ringing in the new year wherever you may be.
Ben Bear


*Editor's note: There is no gameplan as to where this "somewhere" might be. Suggestions welcome.