I got into our apartment building in Uptown, but there's no one in my place. My house keys mysteriously disappeared from my chain. Not sure. Hoping they're inside somewhere.
Where is my home? Or maybe even better, when am I home? I'm wondering what your answer might be. I'm reading Studs Terkel's memoir, Touch and Go, and it's giving me a very particular sense of imagination that I remember holding when I first moved here. There is a sense in the middle of my stomach like I'm eternally stuck 5 minutes before a first date.
[this just in... @#(*#($*%&&%^_ the neighbor started blasting "Homeward Bound" by Simon and Garfunkel. Unbelievable!]
One thing that I know: I'm sort of in love with Chicago. We have a relationship like that of a parent who constantly excuses his child's erratic behavior, stained clothing, and constant need. No - maybe that's not right because I'm not wholly, or even partially capable of controlling this place outside of the weak parameters of internal narrative/perceptions.
I feel something akin to Nelson Algen, "Yet once you've come to be part of this particular patch, you'll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real." - Chicago: City on the Make
Last night when I got home (home?) I watched out the window for a few minutes as a cut-up sir gave a 'how I got mugged' play-by-play to the police. It's sad and ugly. This is happening in the world (on my block) and for unknown and unnamable reasons, I have an inclination to live shoulder to shoulder with it. For unknown/unnamable reasons, this is my home.
I'm curious to know, when are you home? How do you know?
Oh - also this:
I haven't listened to anything else for days:
Well I'm driving to town
But I'm on the same road that took me back home
Put me on the road
Now I'm heading to nothing 'cause its no more fun
Going down through the pines, what I'm doing I did before
And that's all I see
Driving, driving sixteen miles
I'm looking for something I don't want to do
Because my coming to town it took me from you
Now I'm losing my taste for the night life
Losing my taste for the night life
Losing my taste for the night life
Now I feel like an island
A man in a whorehouse
And I'm back again
I go back to the highway, I go back to the farmhouse
And the hills of grain
And I wonder at all
Where I would be
If I can't go and find you there
Well I wondered so long
Where to find you and how
I go standing in where I am right now
Losing my taste for the night life
Losing my taste for the night life
Try it once if you need to
Come back and then you can
Take it out on me
It's the same it could lead you
But all that is what two can do
and still be free
You've been gone such a long time
Now I know it's for real
And how sad or how good
And how I feel
Losing my taste for the night life
6 comments:
Sorry in advance for being trite, but I only ever feel at home when I'm with friends. Geographically I don't have any place where I feel fully comfortable and safe. My childhood home is saturated with memory... going there, I feel like I'm holding my breath. I have an apartment now, but only temporarily and out of necessity. It's nice, but I certainly wouldn't want to attribute to it such a grandiose quality as "home."
But like I said, whenever I'm with people I love and enjoy being with, that's when I usually feel at home. Hopefully someday I can concentrate that energy into an actual place where I... you know... live.
P.S. - I also feel at home whenever I listen to the wonderful music of Anathallo ^_^
in the moment that you can make love stay, thats where home is.
dang.
dang indeed.
Home is where the hugs are. Think about it. A good Hug....nothing more homely than that. Homely in the grandest sense of the word, or maybe the not. Maybe the gritty sense.
David
i personally love this garden state quote -
Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone... It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't 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 miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.
kinda depressingly emo but i haven't thought of a place as 'home' for a really long time.
althought i think i'll always consider Denver in general my home in the familiar sense of the word.
home?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thEiXbovv98
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