Interest, research, disappointment: this is my cycle. I hear a name, see a picture, watching a movie and I begin to learn as much as I can. I saturate my life with it. Then I eventually come to the edge, I find the seam and can peel away the shiny, soft and beautiful veneer to show the sticky, dirty and hidden understructure. This is what happened to the joy of Christmas, Magic Tricks, and the truth about chicken mcnuggets. If it’s good than this is the order.
When I was 12, I had just started middle school and was well on my way to becoming an adult, Or so I thought. Then something terrible happened. Interest: I discovered God. Everything made sense, everything happened for a reason. I was a soldier of faith on my voyage to heaven.
Research: My Dad attempted to passive aggressively tutor me, and steer me through religion. Our relationship was rocky enough with my parent’s divorce still a fresh wound, oozing and stinging whenever a finger accidently ran across the stitches. My Dad, no longer practicing Christianity, but not ready to go against everything he had grown up with he was now jaded, bored and trying to convince me that the book was not the “literal world of god.” Lower-case “g.”
Being in 6th grade, student rulebook in hand I couldn’t understand how written rules that were clearly rules weren’t, in fact, rules. When did rules become suggestions? Was it time? Maturity? These were concepts so far beyond the compression of a 12 year-old who has experienced neither time nor maturity, so I simply asked, “why not?”
“What language does god speak?” I thought he was asking me this just to be rhetorical or to play with my head.
“All of them…? I guess?”
“Does he talk like you and me?”
“Doesn’t he talk all bible-y?”
“Bible-y?” My Dad now thought I was making rhetorical statements to play with his head. Or an idiot.
“Like, ‘Thou shall,’ ‘Does thy,’ ‘Doth yee?’” I was actually just an idiot.
Then, when I was still 12, I found the edge. I first realized there was a God, and I was going to Hell. I had become somewhat aware of my identity. I discovered the center of my universe, my Alpha and Omega, why north and south existed. My beginning and end. The metaphor used about baseball and “stealing home,” now suddenly became interesting. I had found the reason I was put on this Earth. Ben. I was a 12 year old faggot living in the Bible-Belt. My religion and identity were fundamentally at war. I was armed with definitive rules from the school saying “thou shall not cheat,” and the Bible telling me “persons who impede on other’s lives will face the following disciplinary actions…” Rules are rules.
Being a homo in the Bible-Belt left me with few options. Mom and Dad? I should have known better, but at the time I was scared. Mom had been raised Catholic and Dad had been raised mean. A pastor at Church? Absolutely not. I would end up at a reform camp. People would be “praying for,” me. I would be Baptized and cleansed. People would chant, cry and speak in tongues, squeezing my arm, grabbing my forehead and rubbing my back in an attempt to purge me of my demons and maladies. I might even be exorcized. A boy in my youth group two years older than me had dyed his hair a fluorescent pink color. He was telling people he had been overcome by a demon. He now walked somberly though the halls of the brightly painted church interior, leaning against murals, as an outcast. He hung his head in shame, never making eye contact. He was relegated to helping organize the coat rack and making sure little kids didn’t rub their sticky fingers on the glass windows of the foyer. He was accepted by Christ, but not the church and all for his choice of hair color. And I wanted to live happily ever after with Ben, or whatever “faggots” did. I wasn’t sure. Again, 12 and in the Bible-Belt.
School was also not an option. My school’s PTA was trying to ban Harry Potter. The 4th book had just come out, only one person had died in the books and the whole “savior” plot device hadn’t been introduced yet, and the Jarrett Middle School PTA was already trying to ban them.
I struggled with my sexuality and religious identity.
Disappointment: Was I just not praying hard enough? Had I not read the bible right? Maybe I was too new to this whole “church” thing to be calling in favors. I was confused. Maybe I would wake up on December 25th and be a normal 12 year old. Maybe that was the true meaning of Christmas and I could now smile and nod when people told small children the story of Mary and Joseph in the manger and I could think to myself, “that’s right, the ultimate gift is salvation.” At this point in my life the only gay person I knew was my Mom’s best friend. He was fat, balding, wore ugly shoes and he was friends with people like my Mom, I didn’t want to grow up to be him. There was nothing wrong with him, I just didn’t want to be him. I never thought, “when I grow up I want to drive a 5 year old car, start losing my hair and hang out with people who nag their son about brushing his teeth and doing his homework. That seems like it would be the best thing about growing up.” I wanted to be my youth pastor. I wanted to drive a motorcycle, turn heads and speak eloquently to people of all ages. I wanted to be tall, have piercing blue eyes, an amazing smile, and long legs that supported the most amazing ass I had ever seen. I was back sliding away from “good Christian ways every day.”
Eventually we stopped going to Church. There is a long, complicated sob story that isn’t amusing, funny or pleasant to think about in anyway so it will be omitted. 2 years later my Mom had another divorce under her belt. We left Missouri and her Holy Roller, Evangelical second husband who drove around town with the bumper sticker, “In event of Rapture: This car will be unattended.” I had made the decision to no longer go to church shortly after I had peeled away the soft and comfy veneer to reveal a sticky, terrible damnation. In my step dad’s eyes this was unacceptable, he told us “this house has a demon in it, we have to pray for our safety.” Shortly after this my Mom asked him to leave. Forever. We shortly thereafter moved to Washington, a state far away from mega-churches, and a state capital building with the 10 commandments. My hair was purple and I was an angry atheist with a chip on my shoulder and very confused about what had just happened.
A year later I came out, to little shock, amazement or fanfare. It would be almost 10 years before I sat down to read this and came to any conclusions about my religious views and the events that had shaped them. I was here, and queer and had gotten used to it. But I wasn’t sure about god. I wasn’t sure if he was something I prayed to or just something you said when regular words failed.
***
I’ve long forgotten about Ben, if that’s his name. My Mom is now a lazy Catholic who is unsure of her relationship with god. Lowercase “g.” She goes to church every 3rd Christmas Eve, on Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday if she wakes up early enough and we forgot to buy champagne for mimosas. She collects rosaries, but I have yet to see her use them or open a Bible in the last 10 years. My Dad, now less mean is a proud Pagan who practices psychology (which he calls a medicine of semi-logical-semi-science) and does $30 Tarot card readings. Looking back I could have told them I thought I was gay in the 6th grade and probably would have gotten the glittery purple binder I wanted and transferred to a magnet school for the arts or something.
Now as a 22 year old I am just as confused. I find myself in the antithesis of the Bible-Belt. Instead of zealots and Evangelicals I find myself surrounded on all sides by immature and indigent children with no understanding of religion or the world outside their Gomorrah. They don’t know passages or scripture unless it’s been weaponnized by Bill Maher, Pen & Teller or Stephen Colbert. They only know Sunday school stories and that shell fish were banned in Leviticus. They move bibles to the fiction section because they think they’re original and different. The modern “atheist,” claims to be spiritual but not religious but they don’t know what they’re spiritually connected to. They only know what’s wrong with Christianity, they don’t know how to spell Quran and again crucify the masses for the fundamental minorities. They think Buddha was one man and that Confucius writes strictly for fortune cookies.
I don’t view myself as religious. Or spiritual. And by no means do I want to lump myself in with the caustically abrasive atheist. The King James Bible has become a book of morality plays. The literature is so strong it survived thousands of years and dozens of translations, edits and revisions. Yet the underlining message is still there: be good and good things will come to you. You just need to be patient.
I also find myself spending hours reading about the mythos and history of “pagan” religions. My Dad teaches me what his protestant and racist mother called “farmer’s knowledge,” but in actuality is old pagan teachings. He tells me small anecdotes about the moon and the tides and the constellations that blur the line between logical put-it-in-a-text-book science and something bigger. This is where I become my 12 year-old self again; logic, reason and possibility in one hand, probability, hope and curiosity in another.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Religious Narrative. 1st draft.
Interest, research, disappointment: this is my cycle. I hear a name, see a picture, watching a movie and I begin to learn as much as I can. I saturate my life with it. Then I come to the edge, I find the seam and can peel away the shiny, soft and beautiful veneer to show the sticky, dirty and hidden understructure. This has happened to the joy of Christmas, Magic Tricks, Harry Potter, Love, Sex and Religion. If it’s good this is the order.
Love, Sex and TV shows are simple. Pilot/first date: amazing. The first season I’m obsessed, I need that second good night kiss. And then the plot holes pile up, or I discover the other person likes vegan and gluten free “desserts.” Before long I’m bored, jaded and arguing with them over the plot holes in the TV shows we used to love. Then the love affair is over. In the 6th grade I went through this cycle.
I had started at a middle school. I was 12 and well on my way to becoming an adult, in my own eyes at least. Then something terrible happened, I discovered God. Everything made sense, everything happened for a reason. I was a soldier of faith on my voyage to heaven.
My Dad (now 10 years later a devout Gaia loving Pagan) attempted to passive aggressively tutor me, and steer me though religion. No longer practicing Christianity at all, but not ready to go against everything he had grown up with he was now jaded, bored and trying to convince me that the book was not a “literal world of god.” Lower-case “G.”
Being in the 6th grade, student guidebook in hand I couldn’t understand how written rules that were clearly rules weren’t rules. When did rules become suggestions? Was it time? Maturity? These were concepts so far beyond a 12 year-old’s (who has experienced neither time nor maturity) intellect I simply asked, “why not?”
“What language does god speak?” I thought he was asking me this just to be rhetorical or to play with my head.
“All of them…? I guess?”
“Does he talk like you and me?”
“Doesn’t he talk all bible-y?”
“Bible-y?” My Dad now thought I was making rhetorical statements to play with his head. Or an idiot.
“Like, ‘Thou shall,’ ‘Does thy,’ ‘Doth yee?’”
When I was 12, I first realized there was a God, and I was going to Hell. I had become aware of my destiny and was now somewhat concerned with my identity. I discovered the center of my universe, my Alpha and Omega, the reason I was put on this Earth. Ben. I was a 12 year old faggot living in the Bible-Belt. My religion and identity were fundamentally at war. I was armed with definitive rules from the school saying “thou shall not cheat,” and the Bible telling me “persons who impede on other’s lives will face the following disciplinary actions…” Rules are rules.
Being a homo in the Bible-Belt left me with few options. Mom and Dad? I should have known better but at the time I was scared. Mom had been raised Catholic and Dad had been raised mean. A pastor at Church? Absolutely not. I would end up at a reform camp. People would be “praying for,” me. I would be Baptized and cleansed. People would chant, cry and speak in tongues squeezing my arm, grabbing my forehead and rubbing my back in an attempt to purge me of my demons and maladies. I might even be exorcized. A boy in my youth group two years older than me had dyed his hair. He was telling people he was overcome by a demon. For his choice of hair color. And I wanted to live happily ever after with Ben, or whatever “fags” did. I wasn’t sure. Again, 12 and in the Bible-Belt.
School was also not an option. My school’s PTA was trying to ban Harry Potter. The 4th book had just come out, only one person had died in the books and the whole “savior” plot device hadn’t been introduced yet. And the Jarrett Middle School PTA was already trying to ban them.
I struggled with it. I was confused. Was I just not praying hard enough? Had I not read the bible right? Maybe I was too new to the whole “church” thing to be calling in favors. Maybe I would wake up on December 25th and be a normal 12 year old. Maybe that was the true meaning of Christmas and I could now smile and nod when people told small children the story of Mary and Joseph in the manger and I could think to myself, “that’s right, the ultimate gift is salvation.” At this point in my life the only gay person I knew was my Mom’s best friend. He was fat, balding, wore ugly shoes and he was friends with people like my Mom, I didn’t want to grow up to be him. I wanted to be my youth pastor. Who was tall, had piercing blue eyes, an amazing smile and long legs that supported the most amazing ass I had ever seen. I was back sliding away from “good Christian ways every day.”
Eventually we stopped going to Church. There is a long, complicated sob story that isn’t amusing, funny or pleasant to thing about in anyway so it will be omitted. 2 years later my Mom was divorced from her Holy Roller, Evangelical second husband. He told us all “this house has a demon in it, we have to pray for our safety,” and drove around town with the bumper sticker, “In event of Rapture: This car will be unattended.” We were now living in Washington. My hair was purple and I was an angry atheist with a chip on my shoulder.
A year later I came out, to little shock, amazement or fanfare.
***
My Mom is now a lazy Catholic who is unsure of her relationship with god. Lowercase “g.” She goes to church every 3rd Christmas Eve, on Palm and Easter Sunday if she wakes up early enough and we forgot to buy champagne for mimosas. She collects rosaries, but I have yet to see her use them or open a Bible in the last 10 years. My Dad, now less mean is a proud Pagan who practices psychology (which he calls a medicine of semi-logical-semi-science) and does $30 Tarot card readings. Looking back I could have told them I thought I was gay in the 6th grade and probably could have gotten the glittery purple binder I wanted and transferred to a magnet school for arts or something.
Now as a 22 year old I am just as confused. I find myself in the antithesis of the Bible-Belt. Instead of zealots and Evangelicals I find myself surrounded on all sides by immature and indigent children with no understanding of religion or the world outside their Gomorrah. They don’t know passages or scripture unless it’s been weaponnized by Bill Maher, Pen & Teller or Stephen Colbert. They only know Sunday school stories. They move bibles to the fiction section because they think they’re original and different. The modern “atheist,” claims to be spiritual but not religious but they don’t know what they’re spiritually connected to. They only know what’s wrong with Christianity, they don’t know how to spell Quran and again crucify the masses for the fundamental minorities. They think Buddha was one man and that Confucius writes strictly for fortune cookies.
I don’t view myself as religious. Or spiritual. And by no means do I want to lump myself in with the caustically abrasive atheist. The King James Bible has become a book of morality plays. The literature is so strong it survived thousands of years and dozens of translations, edits and revisions. Yet the underlining message is still there. Be good and good things will come to you. You just need to be patient.
I also find myself spending hours reading about the mythos and history of “pagan” religions. My Dad teaches me what his protestant and racist mother called “farmer’s knowledge,” but in actuality is old pagan teachings. He tells me small anecdotes about the moon and the tides and the constellations that blur the line between logical put-it-in-a-text-book science and something bigger. This is where I become my 12 year-old self again; logic, reason and possibility in one hand, probability, hope and curiosity in another.
Love, Sex and TV shows are simple. Pilot/first date: amazing. The first season I’m obsessed, I need that second good night kiss. And then the plot holes pile up, or I discover the other person likes vegan and gluten free “desserts.” Before long I’m bored, jaded and arguing with them over the plot holes in the TV shows we used to love. Then the love affair is over. In the 6th grade I went through this cycle.
I had started at a middle school. I was 12 and well on my way to becoming an adult, in my own eyes at least. Then something terrible happened, I discovered God. Everything made sense, everything happened for a reason. I was a soldier of faith on my voyage to heaven.
My Dad (now 10 years later a devout Gaia loving Pagan) attempted to passive aggressively tutor me, and steer me though religion. No longer practicing Christianity at all, but not ready to go against everything he had grown up with he was now jaded, bored and trying to convince me that the book was not a “literal world of god.” Lower-case “G.”
Being in the 6th grade, student guidebook in hand I couldn’t understand how written rules that were clearly rules weren’t rules. When did rules become suggestions? Was it time? Maturity? These were concepts so far beyond a 12 year-old’s (who has experienced neither time nor maturity) intellect I simply asked, “why not?”
“What language does god speak?” I thought he was asking me this just to be rhetorical or to play with my head.
“All of them…? I guess?”
“Does he talk like you and me?”
“Doesn’t he talk all bible-y?”
“Bible-y?” My Dad now thought I was making rhetorical statements to play with his head. Or an idiot.
“Like, ‘Thou shall,’ ‘Does thy,’ ‘Doth yee?’”
When I was 12, I first realized there was a God, and I was going to Hell. I had become aware of my destiny and was now somewhat concerned with my identity. I discovered the center of my universe, my Alpha and Omega, the reason I was put on this Earth. Ben. I was a 12 year old faggot living in the Bible-Belt. My religion and identity were fundamentally at war. I was armed with definitive rules from the school saying “thou shall not cheat,” and the Bible telling me “persons who impede on other’s lives will face the following disciplinary actions…” Rules are rules.
Being a homo in the Bible-Belt left me with few options. Mom and Dad? I should have known better but at the time I was scared. Mom had been raised Catholic and Dad had been raised mean. A pastor at Church? Absolutely not. I would end up at a reform camp. People would be “praying for,” me. I would be Baptized and cleansed. People would chant, cry and speak in tongues squeezing my arm, grabbing my forehead and rubbing my back in an attempt to purge me of my demons and maladies. I might even be exorcized. A boy in my youth group two years older than me had dyed his hair. He was telling people he was overcome by a demon. For his choice of hair color. And I wanted to live happily ever after with Ben, or whatever “fags” did. I wasn’t sure. Again, 12 and in the Bible-Belt.
School was also not an option. My school’s PTA was trying to ban Harry Potter. The 4th book had just come out, only one person had died in the books and the whole “savior” plot device hadn’t been introduced yet. And the Jarrett Middle School PTA was already trying to ban them.
I struggled with it. I was confused. Was I just not praying hard enough? Had I not read the bible right? Maybe I was too new to the whole “church” thing to be calling in favors. Maybe I would wake up on December 25th and be a normal 12 year old. Maybe that was the true meaning of Christmas and I could now smile and nod when people told small children the story of Mary and Joseph in the manger and I could think to myself, “that’s right, the ultimate gift is salvation.” At this point in my life the only gay person I knew was my Mom’s best friend. He was fat, balding, wore ugly shoes and he was friends with people like my Mom, I didn’t want to grow up to be him. I wanted to be my youth pastor. Who was tall, had piercing blue eyes, an amazing smile and long legs that supported the most amazing ass I had ever seen. I was back sliding away from “good Christian ways every day.”
Eventually we stopped going to Church. There is a long, complicated sob story that isn’t amusing, funny or pleasant to thing about in anyway so it will be omitted. 2 years later my Mom was divorced from her Holy Roller, Evangelical second husband. He told us all “this house has a demon in it, we have to pray for our safety,” and drove around town with the bumper sticker, “In event of Rapture: This car will be unattended.” We were now living in Washington. My hair was purple and I was an angry atheist with a chip on my shoulder.
A year later I came out, to little shock, amazement or fanfare.
***
My Mom is now a lazy Catholic who is unsure of her relationship with god. Lowercase “g.” She goes to church every 3rd Christmas Eve, on Palm and Easter Sunday if she wakes up early enough and we forgot to buy champagne for mimosas. She collects rosaries, but I have yet to see her use them or open a Bible in the last 10 years. My Dad, now less mean is a proud Pagan who practices psychology (which he calls a medicine of semi-logical-semi-science) and does $30 Tarot card readings. Looking back I could have told them I thought I was gay in the 6th grade and probably could have gotten the glittery purple binder I wanted and transferred to a magnet school for arts or something.
Now as a 22 year old I am just as confused. I find myself in the antithesis of the Bible-Belt. Instead of zealots and Evangelicals I find myself surrounded on all sides by immature and indigent children with no understanding of religion or the world outside their Gomorrah. They don’t know passages or scripture unless it’s been weaponnized by Bill Maher, Pen & Teller or Stephen Colbert. They only know Sunday school stories. They move bibles to the fiction section because they think they’re original and different. The modern “atheist,” claims to be spiritual but not religious but they don’t know what they’re spiritually connected to. They only know what’s wrong with Christianity, they don’t know how to spell Quran and again crucify the masses for the fundamental minorities. They think Buddha was one man and that Confucius writes strictly for fortune cookies.
I don’t view myself as religious. Or spiritual. And by no means do I want to lump myself in with the caustically abrasive atheist. The King James Bible has become a book of morality plays. The literature is so strong it survived thousands of years and dozens of translations, edits and revisions. Yet the underlining message is still there. Be good and good things will come to you. You just need to be patient.
I also find myself spending hours reading about the mythos and history of “pagan” religions. My Dad teaches me what his protestant and racist mother called “farmer’s knowledge,” but in actuality is old pagan teachings. He tells me small anecdotes about the moon and the tides and the constellations that blur the line between logical put-it-in-a-text-book science and something bigger. This is where I become my 12 year-old self again; logic, reason and possibility in one hand, probability, hope and curiosity in another.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Final draft. Essay 1
Natalia Ilyin’s article “Where’s Home?” shows one woman’s confusion with the current idea of who and what we call home. Ilyin says that she’s from New York, but that’s not her home. Then she says she now lives in Seattle, but that’s also not her home. Ilyin thinks she’s lacking a true home, unable to retrace her footsteps to a “home.” She’s confused by everyone’s attachment to houses they may have only lived in for a short period of time. She feels our “idea of home changed from the notion of its being the center of a grounded life to its being a base camp,” meaning, she feels we move from our parent’s house in the suburbs, live somewhere, pack, move again and still consider the suburbs our ancestral home. Her 89 year-old father tries to convince her that “you take home with you,” and idea abstracted to a sweater that smells like home or a family heirloom, or even more abstracted, home is the place where you don’t need these amulets of protection. Home is the place where you empty your pockets, remove your watch and bangles and relax without thinking about it. She adamantly disagrees with the idea of home being what you take with you, saying this is a coping mechanism not home. She also wraps the idea of relaxing into nesting, that people spend unthinkable amounts of dollars annually on renovating, painting and decorating what she considers to be expensive caravans in an attempt to create a haven. Ilyin considers that home may not be a place or even things, but it might be the people you live with. However, she quickly dashes any attachment to her friends and family, feeling she would be too much of a burden on them, comparing emotional dependency to anacondas squeezing their prey to death. Closing, Ilyin remarks that she may have “run as far as one can,” that she may be forced to finally look for an answer for what is home, instead of looking for ways to disprove everyone else’s.
Ilyin states early on her issues with defining home originate in her childhood. She says she “moved from state to state and country to country 12 times in my life,” which would corrupt her view of home, crippling her ability to find a center. Ilyin feels that because she has “never stood on the ground where my great-grandparents once stood,” it is impossible to feel a connection to her past. She seems to think that living in the land of your ancestors imbues you with a history that those whose parents’ parents moved are missing. That if her Grandmother had not emigrated from Russia her family tree would have a tap root to cling to.
Ilyin also believes we are merely gypsies, but with even less purpose. She feels that we live in “expensive caravans” with no direction or purpose to be in them. “We don’t follow an annual route of pilgrimage, hitting the same oasis every six months,” we wander aimlessly from “city to city, state to state and country to country,” or to whatever far off metropolis our job would send us to instead of deciding we need to discover what makes New York our home. Jobs, neighbors, school and family are irrelevant unless your greatest of the great grandparents built your caravan and carved your beds from the trees they spontaneously sprouted from.
For me, home has always been what fills a house and not the structure itself. I’ve packed up all the belonging in my room, moved to a different house and “nested.” I moved several times as a kid, back and forth between Tulsa and Norman, then Springfield and finally to Port Orchard. The house, apartment or spare room became my home because of my belongings and the emotional luggage I brought with me.
I brought with me the social attitudes of place I left, not just sweaters that smelled like what used to be home. I feel this was an important fact that Ilyin left out of her article. People identify themselves with where they’re from and where they’ve been more than where they are. She may not call Seattle or New York home but these cities leave an impression in her personality. We can easily change our dwellings as often as we want, but our emotional ties and memories fill our homes more than our belongings.
Recently I moved to Seattle. I spent months before sorting through everything I owned and deciding if the space it took up was of equal or greater emotional value to its physical presence. I feel I whittled the room I lived in for 8 years that was full to the brim to what I think is a commendable dozen boxes. Ilyin would call me a sentimental nester. I was sure I would be home sick and miss my friends, family and pets back in Port Orchard within the first week. Because of the crap I filled my dorm room with I felt comfortable. By the second day I had new friends that I explored the city with, by the third day I blurted out “home” when talking about the dorms. It felt like saying “I love you” on the first date, but it also felt like it wasn’t a mistake.
Maybe I’m an optimist who makes new homes and families everywhere I go. Maybe I’m in an ignorant bliss not understanding what “home” really means. Maybe I just say “I love you” on the first date.
Ilyin states early on her issues with defining home originate in her childhood. She says she “moved from state to state and country to country 12 times in my life,” which would corrupt her view of home, crippling her ability to find a center. Ilyin feels that because she has “never stood on the ground where my great-grandparents once stood,” it is impossible to feel a connection to her past. She seems to think that living in the land of your ancestors imbues you with a history that those whose parents’ parents moved are missing. That if her Grandmother had not emigrated from Russia her family tree would have a tap root to cling to.
Ilyin also believes we are merely gypsies, but with even less purpose. She feels that we live in “expensive caravans” with no direction or purpose to be in them. “We don’t follow an annual route of pilgrimage, hitting the same oasis every six months,” we wander aimlessly from “city to city, state to state and country to country,” or to whatever far off metropolis our job would send us to instead of deciding we need to discover what makes New York our home. Jobs, neighbors, school and family are irrelevant unless your greatest of the great grandparents built your caravan and carved your beds from the trees they spontaneously sprouted from.
For me, home has always been what fills a house and not the structure itself. I’ve packed up all the belonging in my room, moved to a different house and “nested.” I moved several times as a kid, back and forth between Tulsa and Norman, then Springfield and finally to Port Orchard. The house, apartment or spare room became my home because of my belongings and the emotional luggage I brought with me.
I brought with me the social attitudes of place I left, not just sweaters that smelled like what used to be home. I feel this was an important fact that Ilyin left out of her article. People identify themselves with where they’re from and where they’ve been more than where they are. She may not call Seattle or New York home but these cities leave an impression in her personality. We can easily change our dwellings as often as we want, but our emotional ties and memories fill our homes more than our belongings.
Recently I moved to Seattle. I spent months before sorting through everything I owned and deciding if the space it took up was of equal or greater emotional value to its physical presence. I feel I whittled the room I lived in for 8 years that was full to the brim to what I think is a commendable dozen boxes. Ilyin would call me a sentimental nester. I was sure I would be home sick and miss my friends, family and pets back in Port Orchard within the first week. Because of the crap I filled my dorm room with I felt comfortable. By the second day I had new friends that I explored the city with, by the third day I blurted out “home” when talking about the dorms. It felt like saying “I love you” on the first date, but it also felt like it wasn’t a mistake.
Maybe I’m an optimist who makes new homes and families everywhere I go. Maybe I’m in an ignorant bliss not understanding what “home” really means. Maybe I just say “I love you” on the first date.
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