As I sit here at my desk, I am overwhelmed by melancholy.

Could it be the Fourth of July that brings this on? That it digs deep and, like sand devils, swirls up long forgotten memories from my past? Furthermore, can I blame those old thoughts for not allowing me to get the phrase “Home Sweet Home” out of my head?

Just what do those three syrupy words mean, anyway, to me … to others? Are they recollections of a cozy refuge sheltering a loving family? Was that shelter grand and opulent or small and intimate? And if the windows of that home were open, could the neighbors hear laughter pouring from them or was there a dreadful silence as if no one lived inside? If its corners could talk, what would they echo of the family within them?

It is not hard for the old folks in Austin to think back on what their past homes were like, for all they have to do is look around. At every turn of their heads, they can find remnants of what previously housed them. This leaves me pondering over our newest residents; those who joined us by not simply crossing over our city lines, but by determinedly crossing over the very shores of our country. What does “Home Sweet Home” mean to them?

I wonder if their remembrances of home are of a safe and happy place where they were lovingly harbored? Or do their memories haunt them with a fear, a loneliness, and a despair that we, who grew up in Austin, cannot imagine? Were their homes not a place to escape to for solace and comfort, but rather a place to escape from? Were they anything but sweet?

Try to imagine what it must be like to hurriedly pack up what you need to barely survive and, if you have the time, to look back over your shoulder at a home you probably will never see again. Does it take courage to leave such a place or does it take courage to stay?

On this special week of the Fourth of July, let’s consider our newest Austin settlers, for in every sense of the word that is what they are doing … settling. They are repeating what our ancestors did generations ago leaving a place behind and forging a new life going forward. Perhaps the biggest difference then was that there were many, many immigrants here all sharing together the difficulties of their new beginnings. Now our most recent residents are in small groupings scattered throughout the city.

They don’t look much like the old Austin folks of years ago, a populace void of diversity. Our new Austin comes in colors. Our Home Sweet Home — our Austin Sweet Austin — is a rainbow of skin tones and unrecognizable words that even though they are not understandable to us, still ring mysteriously and even musically in our ears. I like the thought of Austin as a rainbow community because rainbows occur after storms. That is what Austin is for these hopeful people, a place to seek protection from their previous stormy lives.

To me, this makes our town pretty darned special for we have the opportunity to help people start over. Such power! Imagine if you yourself needed a new beginning and what it would mean to you to have help. There is no measure for how much, how little or how long it takes. When our newcomers “make it” they will know.

Skin tone is, in a word, perplexing. I recall an incident that happened years ago when I was living in the deep South attending college. I was walking past a shop where an advertisement for Coppertone suntan lotion was posted in the window. It showed a little blond pig-tailed girl with a deep tan. A playful dog was tugging at the girl’s shorts, pulling them down to reveal a peek at a very private, very starkly white bottom.

Two young local black boys were standing in front of the shop window staring at that poster. The looks on their faces were absolutely incredulous. What? White people were not white all over? Was this some kind of secret only white people shared; that their bodies had zones of different colors? Or possibly were they human chameleons who could change hues to match their surroundings? And above all, what in the world was Coppertone, anyway?

I tried to imagine what this revelation meant to these two little boys, boys who were one color everywhere—even under their clothes and even after a long day in the hot sun. I wondered if they even believed what they were seeing, like this was some kind of joke the advertisers had dreamed up, and even more significantly, which one of the little girl’s colors was the real one? The boys must have spent years contemplating that thought, trying to figure out the truth of it.

I’ve heard white children wonder if black skin might rub off on them leaving dark smudges? Do dark skinned children wonder if white skin might erase streaks on them leaving pale stripes? If you’re still even remotely thinking such thoughts, perhaps it’s time you found out? Shake hands with our Sudanese neighbors. All will be revealed. The fact is that Austin’s now a community housing a kaleidoscope of such skin hues and we’re all rubbing off on each other.

Home, whatever or wherever it might be, is what we make of it. My first Home Sweet Married Home was half a Quonset at the University of Colorado. Not a whole Quonset, mind you, but only a half. It was enough for my new husband and me, and we were extremely grateful the university provided such low rentals for its married veterans going to school on the G.I. Bill. We could only dream of buying a new home or a new car.

Young couples then, like our refugee population now, simply didn’t have those luxuries. We weren’t even supposed to have those luxuries, for such things came only after years of working and saving … and saving … and saving.

Perhaps we’re lucky, for we didn’t have the pressure young Americans of today have in feeling they must have everything the moment they walk down the aisle. That they must have it all to create the right image! We didn’t have an image. It didn’t exist. Like Austin’s settlers, then and now, we knew the miracle of home ownership was years down the line. It was something we earned, not a right that came to us just because we existed on this planet.

I can’t tell you how much I loved our first married home, our Home Sweet Half Quonset. It had two bedrooms, one bath, a tiny living room and an even tinier kitchen. It was enough and it cost $18 a month. My first test at home décor was to embellish it. I had a big problem, however, with its sharply arched walls. How did I hang curtains? I solved this by putting rods at the bottom as well as at the top securing the curtains snuggly up to the curvature of those walls. When the university saw how charming our little corrugated metal home was (a place where a hail storm could leave you brain dead), they asked if it could be the show home; a model to which they could show prospective renters. It was a shamelessly vain moment for me.

You see, Home Sweet Home comes in all sizes, shapes and colors just like its occupants. It’s not what it’s made of that matters but rather the contentment of the people living inside it.

Our first child was born in our university Quonset. One day his chubby fingers sketched a picture of our home. He drew a pipe. From out of the windows—with their fiercely affixed top-and-bottom-attached curtains—he colored streams of something. I asked him what they were. He replied, “That’s us laughing, Mommy.”