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I know what you want to say to me.
Glenn, your problem is that you moved to often. For your whole life, you've never spent ten years living in the same city. If you had stayed put, you wouldn't feel so untethered now. Home would be home.
Except that you are wrong. It doesn't matter if you are moving or if you are staying put. The planet moves faster than you do.
For years, I assumed I would spend my whole life in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was home (more so than anyplace else before or since). But Santa Cruz -- the Santa Cruz that was my home -- is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. The Santa Cruz that was my home is the Santa Cruz where I would spend time with Scott and Daniel and Marty and Michael and Randy and Rich and Katie and Gayle and Ann and Phred and Melissa and Ricky. Look all you want, they aren't there. Before I left Santa Cruz, it left me.
But it's worse than gone. Because I can go to the place where it used to be, and what I will find there is this creepy doppelgänger of the place that was my home. It looks almost the same, but the loneliness is palpable. My chest tightens up any time I go there. If I hadn't left Santa Cruz, I would wake up with that haunted feeling every single day.
That is why it is best to keep moving. Stay a step ahead of the ghosts that are trying to haunt you until you get to your real home at last.
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Thursday, May 24, 2007
2. The Problem of Home
My home is not the road.
I mean, I know the ultimate answer. But knowing the ultimate answer does me no good right now. Maybe in forty years. Maybe tomorrow. Not now.
My home is eternal communion with my Lord and with my brothers and sisters. When a place and time on earth feels like home, I know that the feeling is a shadow, a foretaste, of real home. We never find our way home in this life. And we never stop looking.
I know that.
I have lived in places that felt like home and I have lived in places that did not. Wander back through my memories with me. The first place I can remember feeling at home in was 1244 College Avenue, Claremont, CA. I lived there in 1967. I've driven past the bungalow recently; it still looks the same.
We lived in two different houses in Rialto when I was a kid. Neither of them felt like home. The closest I felt to home in Rialto was in my tree house, in the eucalyptus in the back yard.
In 1979 I worked at Disneyland. Just for the summer. I knew all the ins and outs. Where the break areas are. Employees-only shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland. The restaurants that no one knows about. Where the barbershop is. When I was working at Disneyland, I was living with Dan and Steve in an APT upstairs from a chiropracters office in Ontario, CA. It does not make any sense, but Disneyland felt like home. The APT never quite did.
The next place that felt like home was a cabin in the woods on the banks of a river in Felton, CA. I lived there with Marty, who is really home now.
Actually, my home in those days was quite large, for it encompassed all of Santa Cruz from the Aptos Twin to Farrell's Donuts. That era lasted from 1980 until 1985. That was the last place that felt like home.
No, that was the last place I lived that felt like home. I've never lived in Minnesota. I have visted several times. I remember being surprised by the feeling the moment the plane touched down at MSP on my first trip in 1990. This is home. The feeling has wafted over me on each trip since.
For five and a half years I have lived in Tucson, Arizona. I like it here; I'm happy here. For twelve years before that I lived in Silicon Valley. I was happy there also. Neither place ever felt like home.
I mean, I know the ultimate answer. But knowing the ultimate answer does me no good right now. Maybe in forty years. Maybe tomorrow. Not now.
My home is eternal communion with my Lord and with my brothers and sisters. When a place and time on earth feels like home, I know that the feeling is a shadow, a foretaste, of real home. We never find our way home in this life. And we never stop looking.
I know that.
I have lived in places that felt like home and I have lived in places that did not. Wander back through my memories with me. The first place I can remember feeling at home in was 1244 College Avenue, Claremont, CA. I lived there in 1967. I've driven past the bungalow recently; it still looks the same.
We lived in two different houses in Rialto when I was a kid. Neither of them felt like home. The closest I felt to home in Rialto was in my tree house, in the eucalyptus in the back yard.
In 1979 I worked at Disneyland. Just for the summer. I knew all the ins and outs. Where the break areas are. Employees-only shortcuts from Adventureland to Frontierland. The restaurants that no one knows about. Where the barbershop is. When I was working at Disneyland, I was living with Dan and Steve in an APT upstairs from a chiropracters office in Ontario, CA. It does not make any sense, but Disneyland felt like home. The APT never quite did.
The next place that felt like home was a cabin in the woods on the banks of a river in Felton, CA. I lived there with Marty, who is really home now.
Actually, my home in those days was quite large, for it encompassed all of Santa Cruz from the Aptos Twin to Farrell's Donuts. That era lasted from 1980 until 1985. That was the last place that felt like home.
No, that was the last place I lived that felt like home. I've never lived in Minnesota. I have visted several times. I remember being surprised by the feeling the moment the plane touched down at MSP on my first trip in 1990. This is home. The feeling has wafted over me on each trip since.
For five and a half years I have lived in Tucson, Arizona. I like it here; I'm happy here. For twelve years before that I lived in Silicon Valley. I was happy there also. Neither place ever felt like home.
1. The Distant Music of Revving Engines
My home is the road.
Usually I begin to catch the scent of an upcoming road trip, a month or two up the line. At some point, sitting in my office, I am distracted by the distant music of revving engines.
My traveling journals began in 1982 with a trip to Toronto from my home in California. I have four books scribbled with handwriting I used to think only I could read. The entries mostly concern being somewhere else than here. Now I am a blogger, of sorts anyhow. So I'll share the journal and share the journey.
The road trip is still seven weeks away. The details aren't figured out yet. I don't know the route. The destination is familar, though. I found myself there in 1990, 1999, and 2000, a few days each time. You'll find it midway between a giant wooden lumberjack and a giant fiberglass walleye. It is a peaceful place called Bay Lake, and it is as much like home as any other place I've been.
My mind keeps getting ahead of my body. My body will spend the next seven weeks trapped in Tucson. My mind will wander through all the alternative routes that lead from Arizona to Minnesota, roads familiar and strange.
Usually I begin to catch the scent of an upcoming road trip, a month or two up the line. At some point, sitting in my office, I am distracted by the distant music of revving engines.
My traveling journals began in 1982 with a trip to Toronto from my home in California. I have four books scribbled with handwriting I used to think only I could read. The entries mostly concern being somewhere else than here. Now I am a blogger, of sorts anyhow. So I'll share the journal and share the journey.
The road trip is still seven weeks away. The details aren't figured out yet. I don't know the route. The destination is familar, though. I found myself there in 1990, 1999, and 2000, a few days each time. You'll find it midway between a giant wooden lumberjack and a giant fiberglass walleye. It is a peaceful place called Bay Lake, and it is as much like home as any other place I've been.
My mind keeps getting ahead of my body. My body will spend the next seven weeks trapped in Tucson. My mind will wander through all the alternative routes that lead from Arizona to Minnesota, roads familiar and strange.
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