By WILL NORTH

Beachcomber Columnist

In the last few weeks, a number of people have stopped me in town to say they appreciated my thoughts on the subject of home.

One of the things that has always fascinated me is that what feels like home to one person can seem like hell to someone else — which is to say that we each respond differently, intellectually and emotionally, to a given place. Some of us are lucky enough to discover a place that feels like home; others (and I was one of them before I found Vashon) are forever in search of it.

When you ask someone what it means to feel at home someplace, they’ll say something vague like, “It’s where you feel comfortable.”

That’s not good enough for me. I want to know what the bits and pieces of experience are which, when taken together, give us a sense of belonging to one particular place and not another.

I’ve spent several years pursuing this … well, OK, this obsession … and I’ve concluded that there is a structure — an anatomy — to home.

I think it’s composed of seven key components: Place, Shape, Beauty, Comfort, Delight, Dwelling and Spirit. And since how much each of these characteristics means varies with each of us, what feels like home varies, too.

This week, and in weeks to come, I’ll take a look at each and at what it is about Vashon that makes this Island feel so seductively like home to so many of us lucky enough to live here.

Let’s begin with Place.

Genesis tells us, “In the beginning … the earth was without form, and void.”

I wonder if there is any phrase, in any language, more terrifying than that. Imagine it: there was only space (since the earth was without form), and time (since there was a beginning). Beyond that, nothing. So how does space become place?

To me, place is space given meaning. Space is abstract and meaningless. Place is particular, human and meaning-rich, for only humans confer meaning. I’m intrigued by the fact that, in our language, space is defined by prepositions (forgive me, I’m a writer) like “at,” “in,” “over” or “under.” Place, on the other hand, is defined by nouns, like “valley,” “beach,” “hill,” “shop,” and so on. Or, to bring it home, as it were: KVI beach, Quartermaster Harbor, Thriftway, the Burton Coffee Stand.

See what I mean? Place is particular. And yet one of the most soul-destroying aspects of contemporary America is its increasing placelessness — the loss of particular character.

Let’s say, for example, you were parachuted into somewhere along Bel-Red Road in Bellevue. You wouldn’t have any idea where you were. That landscape is “American generic”: strip malls with the same shops, residential subdivisions that look alike, characterless office “parks.” You could be anywhere — and to me, that’s the same as nowhere.

But Vashon? Uh-uh. Vashon is particular. Vashon has its own distinct sense of place.

It’s partly a package of natural gifts — the scalloped shoreline, the soft hills, the meadows and farms, the deeply eroded hollows, the harbors. But that doesn’t explain how, separated by a scant couple of miles, it can be so utterly distinct from, say, Bainbridge Island. And I would submit, though I’m certainly no expert, that it’s partly to do with this Island’s curious refusal to lose its soul.

Oh yes, things change; anyone who’s grown up here can and will tell you that. But something stubbornly real persists. The people who live here make sure it does. The evidence is all around: in the crowded farmers market, in the honor system farm and flower stands, in the deep support of organizations like the food bank, VIPP, Wolftown, Baahaus, the arts and so much more.

And there’s another thing: The people who live here do it by choice. They didn’t just end up here because of a job, for example. It’s not on the way to anywhere. They sought it out. When you live on an island, there are certain obvious inconveniences. But for the people who live here — the ones who were born here and either decided to stay or eventually returned, and the people who visited here and decided not to leave — the placeness of this Island, its particularness, has meaning that far outweighs the inconveniences.

Home, then, is the terrifically imprecise word we use to give personal meaning to Vashon’s distinct Sense of Place.

— Will North is an author and Island resident.