People often imagine home as something permanent, the place where life begins. But conversations with individuals at Carl Sandburg show that the idea of home is not always tied to one place. For some, it’s found in traditions, relationships, or even the things that they care about most.
Mrs. Mroz spent the early years of her life in southern Poland before moving to the United States in 1991 when she was eight years old. Life there looked very different from what Americans experience today.
“Poland was under communist control at the time, so everything was rationed,” Mroz said. “You had to go to the store with a ticket that limited how much food you could buy.”
Daily life for her required patience. Long lines at stores were common, and even simple things like making a phone call meant travelling into the city and scheduling a time to use one. Yet what she remembers most clearly is not the difficulty of those moments, but the closeness between people.
“We had chickens and our neighbors had cows, so we would trade,” she said. “The community in the village really helped each other out.”
When she moved to Burbank, Illinois, everything around her changed. She stepped into a new language, a new school system, and new culture all at once.
“The only things I knew how to say in English were my name, my dad’s phone number, and our address,” she explained.
Over time she learned the language and built a life in the United States. But parts of her childhood in Poland still remain present in the traditions she continues today. One of those traditions is Wigilia, the Polish Christmas Eve dinner.
“We have twelve dishes and they’re all non-meat foods like fish and pierogi,” she said. “We wait until the first star appears before we sit down and eat.”
Traditions like Wigilia are more than celebrations. They are bridges between the past and present, reminders that the place someone once called home can continue to shape the life they live now.
“Home is where I want to go after a bad day,” Mroz said. “It’s a safe place. It’s where my family is.” But she added “home doesn’t necessarily mean it’s here or there.”
While some people define home through geography or the past, others find it in the present through passion, routine, and the places where they feel most at ease.
For junior Luke Nayder, the idea of home appears in quiet moments when a single moment comes into focus.
“Home can be a feeling. For me, photography creates that connection. It’s something I always have with me.” Nayder said.
Car photography changes the way he sees the world around him. Observing and framing a moment slows time in a way everyday life rarely allows.
“On Sunday mornings, photographing rare classics helps me capture how calm everything feels,” he said.
In those early hours, the city feels different. Streets are quieter. Light moves slowly across surfaces. What might seem ordinary to others becomes something worth noticing.
“There is something about being a creator that brings peace. You can take a single photo many different ways,” Nayder explained.
Each photograph becomes a reflection of how he sees the world. In that process, home begins to feel less like a place and more like the sense of belonging that comes from doing something that feels true to him.
For senior Caesar Gaytan, the feeling of home is rooted in community. Gaytan is a second-generation Mexican American whose parents immigrated from Mexico and much of his extended family still lives there. Even across distance, those connections remain part of how he understands himself. Growing up in Chicago, he was surrounded by Latino communities, but he says his relationship with his culture deepened as he became more involved in school.
“I didn’t fully embrace my culture until I joined International Fest here at Sandburg,” Gaytan said.
Through traditional dancing and cultural celebrations, he found a community where he could express something that had always been a part of his life.
As he became more involved, Gaytan began thinking about how community shapes the way people see themselves. Seeing other cultural organizations encouraged him to help start the Latino Student Association.
“I wanted a place where Latino students could connect and express their culture,” he said.
In creating that space, Gaytan wasn’t just preserving culture but building a community where students felt seen and understood. That sense of community has become even more meaningful as events around the world have made him reflect on his connection to his family and culture.
“It hits close to home seeing people in my home country being affected by things they shouldn’t have to go through,” Gaytan said.
For Gaytan, home is not only about where someone comes from, but also about the perspective they carry with them.
“A lot of it comes down to empathy and mindset,” Gaytan said. “Home is shaped by the way you look at things and how you experience life.”
Home in the end is rarely just the place where someone begins. Sometimes it lives in memories carried across oceans, in traditions that survive generations, in the communities people build, or the quiet moments when someone discovers something that feels true to them. Like waiting for the first star to appear before a Christmas Eve dinner in Poland, home is often something people recognize when they pause long enough to notice it.