Tuesday I went to Lake Geneva, WI to visit a company I have been working with for a couple of years. Although the trip made for a long day (about 15 hours door-to-door) the driving portion was amazingly pretty: crisp blue skies, bright sun, red, orange and yellow leaves, pumpkins, mums, old rustic barns. I swear it looks like the whole state of Wisconsin hired a professional landscaper. It was just that pretty.
Ruminating during my marathon trip ... I thought about home. Not my home specifically but rather the concept of home. My perception of that company and the people in it changed when I saw their beautiful hometown, the pride they had in their work, the success they've had, the machinery, the buildings and so on. And that got to thinking about one of my favorite moments in any relationship -- when you see someone on their home turf for the first time.
Going to someone's house or hometown or even their office for the first time is an profound moment of discovery to me. You see immediately what's important: is it family, play, wealth, appearance, comfort, pets, spirituality? Are they neat or messy? Some people like to peek in medicine cabinets but personally I like to see what's in the fridge (although I promise I don't snoop). And when you look around town, what was the high school like? Where did they hang out?
And another telling thing to me -- how far from where they grew up are they now? I'm equally fascinated by people who are halfway across the country from home or those who are just a few blocks from home. I have a friend who recently found himself living across the street from where his parents lived when he was a toddler. It's sort of a fluke but not much ... his high school is down the street, so are his parents, a sister and brother. On the other hand I have a friend who moved out of her home state immediately after college and now lives 2 time zones away.
I also love houses -- looking at them, touring them. An afternoon spent looking at houses, even if I'm not in the market, is still fun. I almost got my real estate license so I could do it all day long. Furnished is better than unfurnished -- it's definitely the "stuff" that gives a place it's character.
So anyway, while I've always loved to travel and have these romanticized ideas of living somewhere new and different someday, I'm still just across town from where I was born. And honestly, after being away for just a day I was glad to come home again. (Traffic on I-94 will do that to anyone I think.) Home is more than a place to me, it's a comfort level, it's the concept and the dream of safety and rest.
Maybe that's why The Hobbit was one of my favorite books ... like Bilbo I always look for an adventure but in the end I want to go home to my little hobbit hole and put my feet up with a book and a nice cup of hot chocolate.
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One of the conceits of my novel is that of my three primary characters, they've all moved less than 30 miles from where they grew up, and almost all their parents have moved away. It stems not just from the fact that I'm a half hour from 'home' and 17 miles from the town we lived in before that, but also that I grew up with the notion that you grow up and move away. Anywhere, but it must be 'away.' And since my book is about getting things wrong as much as it's about anything, it struck me that my characters should botch this up as badly as I have.
The stuff is definitely key. My friend Karl lives in a studio apartment in Manhattan, but it's identical to his portion of a house he rented with a couple of other musicians off 55th and Troost in the late 80s. Except he doesn't have roommates, only more musical instruments than ever.
Even his cat was a self-portrait in feline familiars.
My house is like my mind: chaotic to unsanitary; filled with stuff and living beings wanted and not; responsive to therapeutic measures but not cured; the residence of everything I value, all that I detest; with what I can't explain away and the stuff I can't even fathom.
Fantasies about running away from this home are immediately, irrevocably throttled by the realization that no matter where I go, it would be the same. Except I'd have left the good stuff behind.
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