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“I will take one large cup of french fries please” I request.

“That will be 4 dollars and 95 cents” the cashier utters. I hand him four dollar bills, three quarters, and two dimes and he gives me a number card in exchange. “Number forty-five” the cashier hollers. Oh, that is me. I approach the counter and grab the brown bag holding my french fries, leaving the card. I walk back toward where I was standing before and take a seat. Opening up the bag, the deep-fried, salty, and thin slices of potato waft their scent toward me. A stark reminder of my childhood and time getting Happy Meals at McDonald’s. Soon, all the french fries in the cup are gone and I make my way to the compost bin to discard the brown bag. But, wait. There still lies one more french fry. Ecstatic, I take it out and savor it before I dump the bag.

This feeling, the feeling of finding one last fry at the bottom of the bag after thinking that all were eaten is the feeling of home I have grown accustomed to in today’s climate due to the Coronavirus. I used to think of home as something you can get and a structure, much like the bag of french fries you can buy with money. However, there is so much more to the concept of home.

I now think of home as a feeling, a transitory place that depends on the intimacy of relationships. And, no I do not mean the intimacy that is done in private most of the time in the bedroom, but the familiar and close relationships we have that uplift us – good friends and/or family. It is the closeness of bond that facilitates laugh attacks, happiness, or even high-tempered anger. A refuge in a time of despair and hurt when no one else can understand me. It is a place to be accepted with unconditional love and no judgment that would not result in regret for the vulnerability showed.

The Coronavirus has shifted my outlook on the way I think of home from a place to something more unclear and ever-evolving. The aspects I once associated with home now are not the same aspects I once associated with it. The french fry that lost its way from the group of other french fries in the cup is much like my outlook on home today – it deviates from the norm.

Home is considered a location for many and was my past perception, a construction that is present and within the expectations of being a shelter. Ergo, it is nothing special nor ordinary – it is the expectation. Home for me now is the excitement and thrill that is not always around. It comes, goes, and surprises you in the moments you never expect. Laugh attacks and joy are all moments that are not calendared in, just like how a lonely french fry at the bottom of the bag is not put there on purpose.

Home used to be the bag of french fries, but now it is the feeling like when finding a lonely fry at the bottom of the bag.

The red embroidered Turkish rug that lies on the floor, The photos of the old country lying around my home, Consistently I am reminded of where my family comes from. Last march as time settled in and began to stop, As my education went from the location of my escape to the confines of my home, I noticed the beauties within said confines. My childhood home, once a space I wished to escape, Now I notice the comforts that lie behind each door and within each crevice. I open my spice cabinet, I am reminded of the scent of my home and the scent of my heritage, I shuffle through a bin of pictures, I see my older brothers: Amir, Ameen, and Adel.

They’ve made their farewells, Leaving these confines for the bigger world: California, Seoul and Brussels. But in these photos underneath my cabinet, they remain everlasting in that moment in time, Now thousands of miles away I remember them. I then open another box and see a photo, It’s my grandmother, my omi, my namesake, In a room with touches of decor, I look around and now see these elements in my own home.

However, I’m not in the room in the picture. No longer fixed in 1970, The books on these shelves, The pictures on my walls, And the teapots awkwardly placed on a bookshelf, Transcend the decades and the distance, As they lie no longer in a riad in Libya but in my childhood home, With me and my new life, In the suburbs of south Florida. I place my box away, Keeping the memories nearby, As I grab my camera to capture some more. My family is gathered around a coffee table, Each with their hands folded covering their cards. We play a game, go fish, speed, I do not recall. I do however remember the laugh of my father, The smile of my mother, The agitation of my cousin who stopped in. As the time tipped away, The cardamom coffee made its rounds, And I remembered what makes my home mine. It’s not the odd decor, The disco light in my pool, The interior design foible that is popcorn ceiling, It’s my family.

The memories in my home will forever shape me, And as I soon depart my location of security, The location I bake croissants in, The location I cry over calc tests in, The location for which I’ve become myself in, I am ready to make my way in the world. Soon I will board a flight to Baltimore, Begin studying at Johns Hopkins University, Alone and without knowing a soul I likely will begin to miss my home, But what I miss is not the four walls and roof for which I live under, But what I truly love about where I live, My family, the many souls to have entered and left this home, My gossiping neighbor across the street, The wood-shop teacher who’d come over for lunch, The boba shop a walking distance away I’d spend hours at with my friends, The book store nearby where I discovered my love of politics. I will miss my house, My comfortable bed, The feel of my toes on the soft carpet, But most of all, I will miss what my home represents. Family, friends, love.