home, sweet home

a dear friend of mine defines "home" as any place where you have:

a favorite restaurant, 

a favorite place,

and a best friend.

i like that definition.  a lot.  but my definition of home is different.  probably because it isn't a definition so much as a feeling.  i think james taylor put my home-sensation best when he said, "there is a feeling like the clenching of a fist, there is a hunger in the center of the chest, there is a passage through the darkness and the mist".  that's what home is to me.  it is a place that melts in through my skin and finds its way into my heart making me ache and ache for it when i can't be there, but bringing such fulness when i can.

i've had many such places in my life.  growing up i always had two homes, two rooms, two addresses, two places to claim and to claim me.  

the great salt lake city

jacob lake, arizona

i've never really known whether to say i am a utahan or an arizonan and have settled on utah mainly for the simplicity of it.  if you say you're from arizona at the north rim of the grand canyon, a long conversation usually ensues rife with information too in depth for most first meetings.  

commuting between these two residences got me thinking early on about the importance of place and how people can change based on the setting they're in.  i'm a different person in utah than i am in arizona.  different parts of me are needed in both places.  salt lake is more normal, more regular, a more stereotypical home where i live with my mom, dad, two brothers, and dog.  when i'm in salt lake, i'm doing things that most americans do: going to school, hanging out with friends, shopping, watching tv, texting.  jacob lake is more wild, unorthodox.  when i'm there the internet is crap, cell service is out of the question, and up until a few years ago, there was no tv to watch.  hanging out with friends means scampering around zion, lake powell, bryce, the grand canyon (of course).  the backyard is a ponderosa pine forest that smells like vanilla when it rains and like heaven even when it doesn't.  each place carries with it its own responsibilities, challenges, and rewards.  i've been away from my arizona home for a long time.  it is the one i ache for most.  sometimes i suspect that redrock sand runs in my veins.

in the past few years, i've put a few more homes under my belt.  chronologically speaking, hawaii ranks third in my home collection.

kailua, oahu to be exact

my parents have some dear friends who live in kailua, auntie jadean and uncle eric.  due to some gross oversight, i don't have any pictures of them to share.  they are some of my favorite people in the whole world.  i've been lucky enough to visit them 5 or 6 times.  since day one, hawaii nestled me into itself making me feel warm, welcome, and sunkissed.  sometimes i have hawaii days when it feels like nothing but that island will do.  a terribly expensive void to fill.

i think i was predisposed to have a hawaiian soft spot.  when i was 5 i used to hang out with my older cousins sometimes.  they spent a lot of time with polynesians.  wishing i was polynesian started then and has yet to stop.  some of the kindest, biggest, most charitable people i've ever come across are poly.  it's part of their culture in a different way.  so i get to be a slightly different me when i am with them, more open, more connected, more free with myself and those things that i have to give. 

scotland would probably fall next on my home timeline.  i went there with my family when i was 16.  it was extra cool because we went during the world cup.  and thus was cemented my life long love for soccer.  but that is beside the point.  when i got out of the car in edinburgh i thought, "i'm home" and kept right on thinking it even after we left scotland behind.  

who doesn't love this?

scotland feels like a high and haunting bagpipe melody to me, chalk-full of that slightly sad wisdom that comes from history.  oddly enough, i get a very similar feeling when i go to the hopi reservation.  something about these places makes my throat catch when i think about them because of the pasts that they are connected to.  my family, in different ways, comes from these two lonely, lovely places.  both are harsh, scotland for its cold, arizona for its heat.  the people who come from them are strong and proud and i feel honored to be linked to them.

walpi, arizona

if you had asked me while i was on my study abroad in vienna if i would ever long for it, i would have laughed in your face.  and then i would have had to eat my words.  these days, i even miss the german.  and the cold german speakers.  i miss being foreign and daily discovering that my way of life isn't even close to being the only way of life.  i miss my house parents, helmut and edith, who i also don't have pictures of... and i miss milka strawberry chocolate bars.  i put on some goooooooood pounds thanks to those.  oh, the joys of being a 19 year old in europe, thinking that eating american food is a novelty and a privilege.  this is the place and experience that really compelled me to find who i am on my own.  and that is an irreplaceable opportunity.

wein, osterreich

lately my blog has taken on a latin flavor.  as has my life.  somehow, through the friends i have made at the elc, i have started to feel a new home-call: latin america.  i've never been there and i get homesick for it.  i love who i am when i'm with brazilians, mexicans, bolivians, argentines, colombians, peruvians.  i can be as loud and crazy as i want.  dancing to heavy-beats is the dominant activity.  humor is a little off color.  and the food is phenomenal. 

it's like i've just been waiting for life to sound like this:

and for james taylor to sound like this:

i love speaking english in a really heavy accent and somehow thinking that makes me bilingual.  i love trying to help people find their place in my culture and, consequently, finding my place in theirs.  i love seeing how many different ways there are to look at the same things.  latins see me very differently than americans do.  i think that's due to a combination of factors: that i am different with them and that they see the world differently.  

sometimes i get afraid that i am going to lose this home before i even get to visit it.  what a horrible fate that would be.