this is a bit of a postscript to my post “in my heart” :
a friend of mine, also living in a town that she didn’t originally call “home,” and i got a in a little discussion about our thoughts on home and towns we love and this sort of thing. in light of that discussion, and sanae’s comment on my post, i had a few more thoughts i wanted to let loose.
(if you have thoughts along this line, i would love to hear them. most of you guys have moved at least a few times, and i’m terribly fascinated by the idea of home. perhaps i have been ever since i learned that there was a book called You Can’t Go Home Again. it’s by thomas wolfe, and i’ve never read it, actually, because i think deep down i’m afraid he might be right).
sanae noted (quite perceptively, i thought) that sometimes what we love about a place, what we think has put it in our hearts, is really just memories — and as much as we love those, they are a part of our past. but we’re always relocated to create new memories. she ends with “if the austin chapter isn’t closed, it’s just been relocated, perhaps.”
i thought about that quite a bit. and to some extent, yes, i believe she is right. maybe we can’t go home again because “home” never exists as it was. i remember moving to bible school, and calling a friend and saying how much i missed austin. and she told me that what i really missed was the years i had spent in austin, and those had changed. everyone had graduated and moved, and even if i were to come back to austin, it would not be the same austin i recalled. that’s definitely something to consider.
but i think my feelings for towns run deeper than just their memories. i’m getting increasingly fond of the idea that i carry towns with me – in pockets and in my heart. i told sanae that, yes, austin is a part of my past — but since it has shaped me so much, it’s also a part of my present.
what’s the difference then — between towns i carry in my heart, like austin, and towns i carry in my pocket – london, the cambridges.
i think it is this — austin is so much a part of me — of how i define myself and how i want to be able to define myself, that i consider it carried in my heart. in some ways, i’ll consider myself an austinite no matter how long i’m gone for, and no matter how infrequently i return. when i am there, i belong there. and when i am not there, when people mention it or tell stories about it, i still know that i belong there. it is my town they speak of. i carry it in my heart. and i carry its heart in my heart — not just its memories; something of its essence is etched in my being.
but london i carry in my pocket. its a part of me, and i love it, and when i go back i feel comfortable and excited and it just fits… but im not a londoner. i tell people, with pride, that i lived there, and i love going back. i always want to go back. but it is like this i think: once i was a part of london, and i love that — but london is not really a part of me. not like austin.
im not sure what kind of keeping i will do with boston/cambridge — right now it is in my pocket — perhaps one day it will be in my heart, too.
in response to this train of thought, a friend offered some insight a coworker had given her: “there are many forms of the ideal place we call home.”
maybe home is an idea in our head, and the towns that fit it best get carried in our hearts. and the rest makes us happy, and we love it, but never quite defines us.
