“…we do not initially come to learning, to being, to knowing, as passive recipients, absorbing the gift of the expertise or “teachers” around us (Freire), but rather we come to knowledge, active, emergent, in relation, co-constructing our reality (LeMaster “Fostering,” Sprague “Expanding,” Toyosaki “Praxis-Oriented”), like my niece, my sister-in-law, and my brother, finding ways to communicate within our respective realities.” -Sarah Keeton, “Tracing the Past to (Re)imagine the Future: A Black Queer Pedagogy of Becoming” 

                My partner and I sometimes tell each other, “You’re my home.” (I like that more than lots of the short descriptions for love that I hear in songs and TV shows: you’re my world, you’re the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and all like that). A home isn’t where we spend all our time. A home, the kind I want, is part of a wider community of collaborating, of coming and going, of walking to work in nearby gardens and having friends over to tell stories all together. And I suppose, in that community, the home I want to help build is a refuge and a delight, a kitchen for cooking food we share, a couch for resting, a table for laying out games and questions and conversations. A home is where I can invite you to spend a few nights next time you’re nearby.
                Today my partner and I are starting the process of moving into a house that will become our home. And I’m thinking about homes as something we learn: a way of being around each other, caring for each other, laughing with each other and noticing what our different laughters and quiets and pauses mean. I’m thinking about homes as something that absorb the time and energy and intent they help shelter. The wood alive with voices just as it’s alive with the sun’s voice. I’m thinking about homes as emergent, alive in the breath of our interaction, a collaboration between builders and painters, neighbors and squirrels, trees and moths, families and friends. A touchpoint between so many lives..