Here, There and Elsewhere.
What is home?
I don’t know much about Cincinnati, OH, other than it is my origin story. It’s the place I took my first breath, my first steps and attended my first funeral at the tender age of 5. My family left Cincinnati when I was 7 years old, and I was particularly indignant about the move because I had just learned to spell Cincinnati. I don’t have much opportunity to spell it out very often these days, but when I do, I’m irrationally proud that I can do so without spell check.
Is Cincinnati my home? In one sense, sure. It is the place where my life began. We know that the early years of life are formative and help to mold much of what comes next. While my time in Cincinnati is somewhat fuzzy since it was a long time ago, and viewed through the lens of early childhood, I do believe there is some small, innate part of me that maintains roots there.
The next address I had was in Oakland, CA. East Oakland, specifically. The dodgy end, you might say. Actually nobody from Oakland would say that. Only a white girl who went through a phase of being obsessed with Love Actually would say that. It’s me. I would say that. Anyway, from 7 to 14, this neighborhood was my home. I attended 4 schools in 7 years. My birthday parties resembled a meeting of the United Nations. I’m GenX, so naturally I walked to school, played in the front yard regularly, and rode the city bus by myself starting around age 10. I’m retroactively worried about my safety just typing those words, but I’m still here so I guess it all worked out ok.
Is Oakland my home? I think of Oakland as my growing up place. So much happens between the ages of 7 to 14. I feel fortunate to have strong core memories in a gritty, diverse place like Oakland. My friend group has never been so colorful. Although I live rural now, the city doesn’t intimidate me, but I’ll probably always lock my doors until my dying day.
The move to Shasta County came in the middle of 8th grade. I think middle and high school is probably the worst time to move your kids. Since 1987 I have reminded my parents of this fact every time we discuss that era in our family. It didn’t kill me. It surely made me stronger. But I hated nearly every minute of it. Ok, maybe that’s dramatic. Let’s say there were big parts of that experience that were genuinely no fun. The clique-y nature of a smaller town, the sameness of everything and everyone, (“Ohhh, so this is where all the white people live”), the shocking prevalence of terrible choices being made by teenagers, which I’m sure happens in big cities too, but not nearly to the degree it’s happening in rural spaces, based on what I observed. My city girl roots led me to conclude small towns are lame and I wanted nothing more than to get out the minute I graduated from high school.
After escaping Shasta County at 18, I had two addresses in San Francisco, three in Santa Cruz County, one seasonal stint in Yellowstone National Park, and a few years in southern Oregon. And after 11 years of wandering and finding my own versions of home, life led me back to Shasta County.
Is Shasta County my home? If home is defined by where we live the majority of our life, then yes, after 28 years, Shasta County is certainly home.
If home is the place we learned the most, grew the most, experienced the most, maybe San Francisco is home.
If home is the place we learn to stand on our own, pay our own bills, chart our own path, perhaps Santa Cruz is home.
If home is somewhere we intentionally choose for ourselves not based on relationships or circumstance or employment, but simply a call to be in a particular place, Yellowstone would be my home.
As a kid who moved around a bit during my growing up years, my greatest desire used to be staying in one place. I was constantly jealous of the kids who had been friends since kindergarten because my kindergarten friends were thousands of miles away. I wondered what it would be like to have a deeper shared history with people outside my immediate family.
More by default than by design, my own kids have experienced exactly this. They have lived in the same city their entire lives. Many of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins live close by. They have changed schools, but some friendships have endured through the transitions. They are so rooted here, at ages 15 and 17, neither has a strong desire to go anywhere else. I believe this is one of those “be careful what you wish for” moments of parenting.
Although we travel quite a bit, my kids haven’t experienced anything outside this place that calls to them. While they can appreciate the excitement of a trip to the big city, or the exotic, relaxation of sitting on a beach in Hawaii, it’s not home. Honeysuckle and BBQ in Texas, bungee aerobics and gourmet donuts in Las Vegas, zip lining and farm stays in Oregon, rock climbing and desert sunsets in Joshua Tree are probably part of their core memories. But it’s not home.
As I enter this era of pre-retirement scheming, my long held desire to stay in one place is eroding. I’ve lived in the same place long enough to feel a bit of restlessness creeping in. I have this quiet yearning to travel, experience new places, explore new corners of the earth, not as a traveler but as a local. I want to settle, not forever, but for extended periods of time, and live new landscapes.
And at the same time, I’m pulled to stay close, nurture these kids as long as they will let me, and invest in this community. I’m no longer chasing promotions but work/life balance. I can see extra breathing room on the horizon as the kids start driving themselves around and taking over plans and decisions and duties that used to land in my lap. My nose is no longer firmly attached to the grindstone. I have time to raise my head and look around, take in the view, and consider the options and opportunities.
For now, this is home. Although I survived moving as a teenager, it’s not something I anticipate inflicting on my kids. Maybe it’s a character building experience that they will resent not having. Or maybe it’s a gift of grounding that will support them in different ways as they grow up. As much as I want to roam, and as much as they want to stay, I am coming to understand that our shared definition of home is temporary. The day is coming when the place we collectively call home will not be in the same house, and perhaps not even in the same zip code.
The truth is, wherever we may roam, home is no longer a place.
It is my people.
What or where do you call home? Can you spell Cincinnati without spellcheck?
Let me know in the comments!