Letter from the Editor

Home is so much more than a house. It’s so much more than four walls, a roof over your head, and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Home is often a feeling, not a place. And it’s yours to define.

For me, home is the smell of my mom’s chicken pot pie on a chilly fall night. It’s my twin sister’s laughter filling the room and the sound of 90s country music on the radio. Home is the first sip of an 89-cent Coke slushy from the gas station after a long day of chores on the farm in the July heat. Home is my boyfriend’s hugs and my big sister’s advice. It’s the smile on a stranger’s face. It’s the cozy coffee shop downtown. It’s the crunch of tires on a gravel road and the taste of a sugary lemon shakeup at the county fair. That’s home to me.

But home is different to each of us. No two people have the exact same definition of home; we all have our own unique experiences relating to home, and that’s what makes it so special. For students at Ball State University, they might find a sense of home in their classrooms, dorms, dining halls, and study spaces across campus. For the Ball Bearings team, the Unified Media Lab located on the second floor of the Art & Journalism Building provides a sort of home to us.

Ball Bearings Magazine is an award-winning, completely student-run magazine publication. Our impressive and creative team of writers, editors, designers, photographers, and videographers tell important and captivating stories. Ball Bearings truly has served as a home for me, and the staff have been like a second family. When I graduate next month, I know I will be leaving a huge piece of my heart here in the Unified Media Lab. Because that’s the thing about finding a home: once you find it, it’s hard to leave it behind.

Ball Bearings executive team pose for a picture at SuperParty 2021.

This semester, Ball Bearings proudly presents you with The Home Issue. This edition of Ball Bearings is filled to the brim with what home means to a wide variety of people. In some cases, home is a renovated school bus (“One Dog, Two Newlyweds, and Shutterspeed the Skoolie”). In others, home is a library, a church (“The Third Place”), or a hospital room (“Hope From a Hospital Room”). Sometimes, people have to pick up their lives to make a new home (“Identity Beyond Borders”). Other times, they must find a way to create a home with no house at all (“Under No Roof”).

No matter what place you call home, I hope The Home Issue resonates with you in some way. Our team created this vision statement for this edition of the magazine: “We all need people, places, and things that create a sanctuary, warm the heart, and make us feel safe and loved.” Our hope is that this magazine finds you at the perfect time and that the stories it contains fill you with a sense of compassion, warmth, and belonging. May they remind you of the people, places, and things that create your sanctuary, warm your heart, and make you feel safe and loved. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a taste of home.

Editor-in-Chief | rafoerder@bsu.edu | @becca_foerder