Homecoming: Writing Place, Memory, and Identity

There are places that shape us long before we realize it. The street corner where you waited for the school bus, the kitchen table where arguments flared or you shared special moments with family, the patch of grass where you first kissed someone who made your heart race. These places live in the body as much as in memory. They remind us of who we were—and sometimes, who we longed to be.

Sometimes we’re taught to make ourselves at home in spaces that don’t always feel safe or welcoming. Maybe you’ve lived in houses where you never fully exhaled. Maybe you’ve left hometowns that seemed too small for the size of your dreams. Maybe you’ve built a home for others but forgotten to make room for yourself.

Photo by Scott Webb

Writing about place can be a way of coming home—not necessarily to a physical address, but to the parts of ourselves that have been scattered across landscapes and seasons. When we write about the places that formed us, we discover not only what we’ve carried with us but also what we’ve left behind.

Try sitting with a memory of a place that still lingers in your bones. It could be a house, a park, a city street, or even a room you once avoided. Close your eyes and step back into it: what do you see? What sounds fill the air? What does it smell like? And most of all—who were you there?

The act of writing these details doesn’t just preserve memory. It allows us to interrogate it. Was that place one of safety or silence? Did it nurture you or confine you? Did you choose it, or were you placed there? And perhaps most importantly: do you still carry it with you, or are you ready to release it?

Sometimes home isn’t where we were, but where we’re heading. Writing gives us the chance to imagine new places—spaces we haven’t yet lived in, but long to create. The quiet room filled with light. The circle of friends where laughter feels easy. The sense of home within our own skin.

Coming home, in this sense, is less about returning and more about reclaiming. It’s about writing yourself into the places that honor who you are now.

Writing Prompt:

Write about a place that shaped you. Describe it with as much sensory detail as possible—then reflect on how it shaped your sense of self. Do you still carry it with you? If not, what place are you longing to build or return to now?