I was talking to Kara the other day and she told me a short little story. Apparently when talking about their visit to Missouri she referred to Missouri as "home." Josh suggested that she refer to Philly as home and Missouri as Missouri. She then told Josh in no uncertain terms that she didn't appreciate the suggestion. Josh then decided he would let her refer to Philly as home on her own terms.
When Kara told me about this I laughed cause she's feisty that one, but I also sympathized. While I've never moved to another state, I have moved about as far as you can and still be in the state, and I had this issue in college--- where to call home. When I was in Springfield it was easy to call my parents' house "home." But when I went to my parents' house and called Springfield "home" it took a little adjusting --especially for my mom. I remember she had a verbal reaction and that almost never happens. I still regularly refer to both places as home, and I noted something when Kara was telling me this story.
Home is only home when you aren't there...
And then I said that was rather poetic and Kara told me I should write about it.
So here we are.
Another way of saying the above statement is: Home is whereever you aren't.
In the movie Garden State there is this speech about home which is beautiful but, (I think) hecka depressing:
You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your stuff*, that idea of home is gone. [...] You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.*changed that word
It's a speech that resonates with college students-- displaced youth that they are. And maybe it sounds like I'm saying the same thing as the above quote, but I'm not. If you read a little deeper into my statement then it's clear that I don't agree with Garden State.
And what I was saying about home? Well, the thing is that you don't talk about "home" unless you 1) Aren't there, 2) Just arrived there, or 3) Want to remain there. We don't usually notice home when we are experiencing it, but when we leave (or consider leaving) that's how we remember it, because we notice the lack. Kara isn't going to call Philly "home" until both her feelings reflect it and she isn't there.
And the thing is that home spreads out. Her house is home first... When she's elsewhere in Philly it's easy to say, "ok, time to go home!" and mean her house. And eventually that will spread to the whole city, so when she's in New York, or Springfield, or St. Louis and refers to home she will mean Philly.... and then someday maybe soon, maybe not, when she refers to home she will mean like she does when she referred to Missouri it in the beginning story-- the whole state of Pennsylvania.
I do not think that home is imaginary, at all... Yes, perhaps it is a feeling. But so are some of the most wonderful things in the world. Love. Compassion. Empathy. All feelings. All quite real, and very powerful. The character on Garden State is numb-- he's been given prescription psychological drugs to numb his feelings since he was nine (not saying they are bad, just that this character was given/is taking them unnecessarily.) So it's no wonder that he thinks home might be imaginary. Home is a feeling, that he hasn't been able to experience since he was nine.
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