Welcome. The word trips easily off the tongue. But true welcome is hard to live out, though people in Southern Ontario tend to define themselves as friendly. To get at the nature of welcome, I am going to explore what this looks like for a couple weeks.

A knock on the door. A friend is there. We open and invite them in. We offer gestures and words of welcome: how was your drive; let me take your coat; it is so good to see you.

The door bell rings. A glance through the window, and we see a stranger. We check for a uniform. Police and we open the door with anxiety. Hydro and we open with a gracious question because we don't want our hydro off for long. No uniform, and we open the door a crack asking what the *** they want, in our tone if not our words.

If the stranger at the door is canvassing for a cause we want to support, our tone becomes warm. Other times, we close the door in their face, not interested in welcoming them even on our doorstep. A couple times on the farm, it was someone who needed help because their car had ended up in a snow bank. We were summoned to help.

With a knock on the door of our house, we have a choice. As the owner of the door, we feel empowered to make a decision about what we will do with the one knocking. But Reader, shift perspective. Be the stranger walking up to an unknown door. You are under the power of the person behind the door. They will choose what to do with whatever you are presenting them with.

Approaching a stranger's house, which door do you go to? I've canvassed during elections often, and as an unwanted visitor, I go to the front door. Sometimes it is very clear that they never use that door. Sometimes, there is no other door visible. I stuff my leaflet with those of the other parties into the handle of this door.

At these houses, it is clear that the family and friends know which door to use. In my job, I have been an expected visitor but they did not tell me which door to use. A knock on the front gets no answer. I look to see if there is a side door. If I find one that with a clear path to it, I am comfortable knocking there. Sometimes, I have to go all the way around the back, even through a gate in a high fence, to find the door they expect me at. If I have to go in the closed door beside the garage to a hidden side entrance, I am uncomfortable even though they know I am coming.

Inside the house, we have patterns as well. I married into a family influenced by India, so we always take off our shoes at the door. There is a mat to place them on. When family is here there is a stack of shoes that are a dog's delight.

In the many houses I go to, people tell me not to bother to take off my shoes. Because I wear slip-ons, the shoes are often already off by the time they tell me to leave them on. In this part of Ontario, the cultural expectation is that you can leave on the shoes you wore outside in the house. Snow boots and mucky shoes excepted.

I have friends who keep a box of slippers at the door. They enforce the shoe removal rule. I've heard people argue that their shoes are clean while the householder got uncomfortable. I have also watched people enter a house without taking off their shoes while unnoticed by them, the people who live in the house cringe. These carry their expectation about what is right into a place where another culture exists.

In our culture, our home is ours. We can set the rules. The way we set up the entry communicates a message about welcome. Do we enforce our way? Do we bend? Do we notice when another is uncomfortable with the rules we set?

Welcome is an act of power. We choose to welcome or not. Even at the door of our home, a stranger learns quickly whether we are welcoming them as they are or not.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway