I'm lying on the couch in a house that, until a few hours ago, I had been in front of but never inside. I know the owners in passing, friends of a friend, and yet here I am, on their couch with their dog snoring on the floor a few feet away. They were asleep when I got here, so I haven't even said hello or thanks for the place to sleep.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm here for a reason. I wasn't freebasing drain cleaner around the corner and wandering around looking for unlocked doors and Doritos or anything. Well, okay, mabe Doritos. Mmm....
Anyway, I'm lying here in the dark, with the whole place asleep, trying and failing to space out to the Alison Krauss album playing on my ipod, and thinking about home. Not my home, in the sense of the place where I keep my stuff, but home in the ephemeral sense, what it means to be home. It's December, meaning Christmas, and that means that a lot of the people I know are going home for the holidays. Being one of 8 people in San Diego who actually think of this place as home, I'm hanging here.
So all these friends of mine who are leaving, going home, do they think of this place as home all year, only to switch allegiances come winter? Or do they only consider this a way station on a larger road? Is this truly just a place to keep their stuff?
Maybe I was smoking something. I don't know. Maybe I just have quiet time now and too much thinking going on. Lord knows I've already written enough tonight that I'm not going to post.
Back to the topic at hand, my brother is coming back this weekend for a few days. I am really excited about this, since we don't talk or hang out nearly enough. I have to wonder though. I think of this as my brother coming home, but does he? Our parents don't live in the house where we grew up, and our childhood rooms are long gone. This doesn't seem to matter much when we're all together, so maybe there's something to all those sappy cliches...I don't know.
Think about it, if like me you can't sleep. Where do you keep your stuff? Is it home?
I'm going to try switching albums.
3 comments:
I think home is wherever you feel the most comfortable in your own skin
SD is not home, but i fear Texas isn't either, since Clark has been gone - if you go by Ann Marie's note, so i don't know where that place is, but i'd desperately like to find it...
Strangely, home is the central coast... a place I've never lived nor where I grew up. But that's where the rest of the family wound up.
Santa Clara just isn't the same anymore. And outside of the confines of my house, Oakland isn't home.
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