Jamie once referred to home as "what we sacrifice." It made sense at the time--he spent 24 years growing up in Wichita, his family always near. Then one year everyone left. One sister went to Newton, one to Australia (then Canada); one brother moved to California, the other to New Zealand with his parents. Jamie flew to Ireland. And there, in a land of poets, of people so rooted to a place that generations of New Yorkers still call it the homeland, Jamie reflected on what it meant to go home.
There are the obvious cliches: a hung hat, the heart; a place you go where they can't turn you away. There are the traditionalists who, like the Irish or the pagans of ancient Rome, are tied to a region as large as a continent or as particular as one's own neighbourhood. Yet there are only two constants when referring to "home": 1. You know when you are there, and 2. You will, eventually, leave.
The first point is rather vague. It's like determining art from not art. One might describe home as a "sense of belonging," but elaborate--what is a sense of belonging? How does one know when one belongs? And then how does one quantify a sense of this? Furthermore, that sensation is different depending on to whom you're talking. A Congolese refugee may not have the same attitudes toward home as a young girl who suffered abuse there. In both of these cases the individuals were forced to sacrifice their homes--the former being physically removed, and the latter stripped of home's general warmth and comfort before she had a chance to experience it.
But we all leave home--everyone, everywhere--eventually. Whether by force or by choice, we will leave it. Home becomes a sacrifice we share, individually if not collectively. It could be likened to the womb: where we are protected; where we are important. Returning home, be it a physical structure or among a group, is in some way returning to a manifestation of maternal care: like when you were six years old and were scared of the dark, you ran to mother--your first home, your only home.
1 comment:
It's amazing how one can see James getting old - he started the year energetically, posting every day. Now, we are lucky if we get a post every second day - very frustrating for someone like me that is spending most of his day procrastinating. Shake the old age away James and give us more posts!
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