Where's Home?

re: my home & my heart - this is an essay in response to a solicitation for stories about where exactly home is for you, given the modern view of a house as a piece of investment, a bank-account with a lawn.

I grew up getting moved around. Dad was in the Air Force. Divorce hit. Mom and us kids were in N.J. staying with my Grandmother. Her house, which had been the 'house on the shore' (New Jersey equivalent of the cabin on the lake) had been our wayfaring point as we moved. California, posted to Portugal. Go spend a few weeks at Grammy's en route. Move back to USA; spend a few weeks at Grammy's. Get divorced, spend ... well, you get the point. We'd go there once in a while from far away during the summer. It was the only anchor I felt at that age.

We moved to West Virginia. It was a dinky place on a farm, which burned down. The place, not the farm. We built our house there. A modern log cabin attached to a 250-year old log cabin. I learned how to use power tools, plumb, run electrical lines, you name it. (Being a woman, this has proved useful and impresses men.) It was going to be "home". I looked forward to finally having that 'home' you described on you video. Somewhere I could return for the holidays that would hold memories.

I grew up, went to college and moved to Michigan. Never really having a reason to leave, I bought a house with my husband, envisioning exactly what I had never had. The place my kids could grow up. I had a raised flower-bed in the back yard where I planted roses. The first one was a mother's day present from some friends in thanks for a bunch of 'mothering' for them, as I had no children at the time. One of my cats loved sleeping there, admidst the rose bushes. I loved the scent of the lilac bushes in the Spring.

My mom sold the farm. Without telling us kids. We were all disapponted; I think my brothers also had figured it would be that ‘home to come home to’. We’re scattered to the for corners of the globe (Wash.D.C., Mpls, L.A./New Zealand). We all wanted that ‘home’, especially my younger brother, who had no memory of ever living anywhere else.

Back in Michigan, I got divorced. I got the house. After so long (7 years), it had achieved that exalted state of "home". It wasn't expensive. It was in the blue collar part of Lansing. I liked it. I was coming back from a business trip one day, and was looking at the city as the plane descended. I saw my house. I realized it had become my home.

Unfortunately for 'home', I met my husband, who had come to Michigan for a short term job. We married. We had our first child. My cat still slept in the rose bushes in the sunshine.

My husband got a job in Minnesota.

I realized how much I had come to regard my home as a permanent fixture in my life when I had to leave it. I had lived there for 10 years. I had planned to live there the rest of my life, another 40 or so, god willing.

We're living in an apartment here in Hopkins, and have been for the past 3 years. I loathe it. It will never be 'mine'. Not because it's an apartment, but because I never planned to stay there long-term. We're moving into Minneapolis in a few weeks, into a rental duplex.

I have come to realize that renting a place is just fine for being "home". No, it will never achieve the 65-year edifice for my family. That's something I will probably never have, due to my husband's work situation. We are definitely in the “home is where the heart is”.

My cat died a few months after moving here. I was completely emotionally distraught. Partially because an 11-year fixture in my life died. Partially because I could never bury him in the rose bushes.

Since we weren't certain we'd stay in Minnesota, we didn't sell the place in Lansing. We rented it, figuring if his job here didn't become permanent, it would be better to move back to Michigan and be unemployed in our own home rather than be unemployed and homeless here. We still own it and rent it. It wasn’t expensive when I bought it. It’s still not. My heart hasn’t figured out for sure whether or not it’s still ‘home’.

Monetarily speaking, it has never occurred to me to view my residence as an investment, like so much stock to be sold in a favorable market. Moving is such a complete, total, and utter pain in the posterior! Above all, I would never do that to my kids. I want to give them what I never had, that fixture of ‘mom & dad’s house’. The place you still call home, despite having lived somewhere else for 30 years. Part of me mourns the fact that I will probably never be able to give it to my two sons. We might stay here in the Twin Cities. We might move to Germany [those being the two likely long-term employment options for my husband]. I want my boys to grow up with the emotional security of knowing ‘home’ is where the heart is. Because that geographical security is a delusion in today’s economy.

I hope this wasn’t too god-awful long for you. I do tend to be verbose writing a story.

I still think of my cat occasionally. Usually with him lying in the rosebushes on a sunny, summer day.