What is home? What makes someone’s home their sanctity, their shelter from all that is bad? Why does one become homesick?
As some of you may remember, my 1000 landmark was an anticipation of things to come during this year... I talked about having been born in Israel, and being excited beyond measure about returning home. I talked about having been separated for many years from my home, but my constant self-assurance that no other home could ever match it.
Well, here I am... I came to Jerusalem a little over a month ago, and have been living here as I haven’t lived since I was about a year old. Making friends here, having to go grocery shopping here... it’s amazing how different living here is from just visiting family as I always have before. This was even more forcefully brought to my attention when about a week ago, my roommate and I took a monit sheirut (a public transportation that’s something in between a taxi and a bus) into Jerusalem for some pizza. She knew Jerusalem a lot better than I had, telling the driver exactly where we wanted to go (though I had to navigate the Hebrew, since she speaks about ten words), and then once we got there, walking me exactly to where she knew there was good pizza. The whole time she was giving me tips on what I should wear ("don’t wear a skirt on the sheirut," she said)… how I should act, so people wouldn’t think I was a tourist.
Why does she have to introduce me to my hometown? She’s lived here a little under a year, being originally from Nebraska. Her family and all her close friends are all home in the States. She is, for all intents and purposes, a stranger here. Why do I feel like more of a stranger than her? Well, for one thing, she treats me as one… which doesn’t help… but more importantly, her life, for the past year, has been centered on this city. Mine has been elsewhere, for seventeen out of the eighteen years of my life.
I love Israel, and I feel that this is my birthplace, this is where my roots are, but I’m still upset. This isn’t where I’ve belonged for most of my life. I’ve missed out on growing up here (not that growing up outside the states was bad at all), and I don’t have what other citizens here have – the integration of the culture into my system. As a result, I’ve been sad and moping for almost the entire time I’ve been here. I’ve found myself missing everyone I’ve left behind in the United States, and my house there, and my dog… in short, I’ve found myself indulging in homesickness.
So it made me think… what is home, really? Is it where you were born? Is it where you’ve lived the longest? Is it where you have the most friends? Why is it, when for the longest time I’ve considered Jerusalem my home (and I’m still not sure that I don’t), I find myself homesick for a place 4000 miles away from here? Is it just that home is whichever one of these locations I happen to be away from? But that doesn’t make sense, because then nobody would ever know the satisfaction of “coming home,” nobody would ever understand what a wonderful thing it is.
This led me to thinking… do I have a home? There are moments here when I feel that I am home, when I really understand that I’ve returned. There are other moments, however, when I catch myself dreaming about Bloomington, or thinking about my friends there, all who have entered my life in the last five years, and influenced me in becoming who I am today. I wonder, also, why this has never bothered me before… why I’ve never bothered to question this concept of “home.” I think that my return to Israel has really opened my eyes to the fact that the dreams and hopes I had of eliminating this sort of internal conflict once I reached here are nothing more than idle wishes. My background does not allow me to have one home, one place where I can be me, and nothing in the world can get in the way of that. I’ve lived in too many places, and have too many ties for that to be possible.
If I don’t have a home, does anyone really have one? Can anyone claim one spot, one single location, to be theirs? I go back to the original question, what exactly is a home? Is my home Hatrack, a place where I feel very comfortable, and have many friends? I think Hatrack is definitely one of the many components of my “home,” but it doesn’t have many of the necessary elements of a concrete location. My home has to be something more complex.
I’m trying to answer this question (although I’m having a hard time not dissolving into tears while writing this post), and I can’t. It doesn’t have an answer. Home is many things: the people, the atmosphere, the comfort… and each one of these has its own place. For me, they happen to all be in different places. I don’t think they’ll ever come together and form one place for me, and I’m not sure I’d want them to. If the concept changed that drastically, I wouldn’t know what home is. And that, I wouldn’t be able to handle as I have tried unsuccessfully to do for the past eighteen years.
But home or not, I'm glad I'm here.
[ September 03, 2004, 05:23 AM: Message edited by: Raia ]
Posted by Pepek (Member # 3773) on :
*sighs*... well.. I never thought I'd be saying something so cheezy.. but for me at least.. Home is where the heart is.. and right now my home is sleeping in her bed somewhere off at a college dreaming dreams I can only wish I was there to share with her.. I hope you understand what's home for you.. I also hope i'll understand mine some day..
-Jack Montague
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
I've been thinking about this a lot. While I have never been away for more than 3 months at a time, I don't think "home" is only one single place. I've been to most countries in Europe, I've been to the U.S., and I think that I could make any place I live in "home". Adjustment takes time, and there is a feeling of homesickness, missing the people you've left behind. But it depends only on you whether you can make the new place your home. Whether you accept that it's different from where you've been before, but does not need to remain "foreign" and "strange".
Raia
I'm happy for you.
Posted by Zevlag (Member # 1405) on :
Raia, home for me is where I most want to be. It's where I am most comfortable. It's that place in my dreams where I always want to live. When I am talking to my dearest friends, I am home. When I get to gather with Hatrackers, I am home. There is a real place that I consider home, but I have yet to live there.
It's been great to have you here. I hope you find that idea called home.
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
I lived in the same house all my life. I remember I spent one Christmas away from home (very far away). By midnight I wanted to cry my heart out.
But I guess everything takes time. Will you be living in Jerusalen forever or will you return to the U.S. after some time (months, years)?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Can anyone claim one spot, one single location, to be theirs?"
Pepek is entirely, 100% right. Home is where the people you love are. It has nothing to do with place, except insofar as you might like the climate or the cultural events or something -- but I promise you that this NEVER matters as much as the people you've grown to know.
I'm going to say something really, really presumptuous, Raia, but I DON'T think Jerusalem is your home -- although I have no doubt that you could make it one, in time. I think you went there searching for things to fill a gap that, perhaps, you didn't actually have.
[ September 03, 2004, 07:58 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Pepek is entirely, 100% right. Home is where the people you love are. It has nothing to do with place, except insofar as you might like the climate or the cultural events or something -- but I promise you that this NEVER matters as much as the people you've grown to know."
I disagree strongly with part of what you say, and agree just as strongly with the other. I do have a physical home, the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Even though we no longer have a house there, and my grandmother is selling hers soon, it is where my body physically feels the land. I know it sounds all cheezy, but when I am driving past a certain point on 87 north, and the mountains start to rise higher, my body relaxes, and I feel a state of bliss.
I feel that way, people-wise, in my home here in Massachusetts, where my husband and children are. I will probably never be able to connect my land home with my people home, because the Adirondacks are too isolated for my husband, but that would be the perfect place for me.
Raia, I have moved around a ton in my life, and I completely understand what you are saying. The Adirondacks was alway the base, because we went there many summers, and lived there off and on during the school year as well. This (10 years) is the longest I have stayed in one place, yet it does not truly feel like "land home."
Israel might be your land home, and given time, might become your people home as well. Or, as you say, you will be more comfortable with having different homes. When I was your age I desperately wanted to be back in the mountains, and went to a college in Vermont so I could look out and see the Adirondacks. I worked at a school in Lake Placid for my first teaching job, and would have stayed there forever if love hadn't pulled me in a different direction. The good thing about moving a lot is that you can feel comfortable in many places.
[ September 03, 2004, 08:19 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
There is a certain connection to the land where you grew up. I moved out of the maritimes a few years ago and my parents soon after. There aren't even that many of my friends out there. And, y'know, I hated it out there. I've got a lot of latent bitterness hanging around about my experiences but I'm still in love with the land. There is something about the area that's comforting and has nothing to do with specific people. Fresh water has been forever ruined for me by the ocean
My folks are now in Sault Ste Marie and while I enjoy my time there with them it will never be home. Sure, it's where the people who love me most are I just don't love the land the same way. I don't think I ever will. To a degree I agree with Tom that your home is wherever you set down your roots but, much like your first relationship, you never forget your first love.
Posted by Ben (Member # 6117) on :
this reminds me of Garden State.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hm. I have absolutely no sentimental attraction to land, although I miss the convenience of living two miles from a decent beach.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
Raia, wherever home is, you will always be loved here, here at hatrack, here in bloomington, wherever we are. I know that you are a friend that has influenced me.
Posted by twinky (Member # 693) on :
That, Tom, is because you didn't grow up in a place like Nova Scotia.
Raia, I haven't been in one place for more than eight months at a time in the last five years. Whenever I wonder about where "home" is, I can't help but think of Metallica: "Where I lay my head is home." In most of the meaningful senses, I think, this is entirely true. It's certainly the view I have come to subscribe to. Home, for me, is one of two possible places: It's either where I am, or if I'm in transit, it's where I'm going.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Raia, Pepek's quoting of the old addage "Home is where the Heart is" is 100% right.
But also remember, sometimes it takes a little while for one's heart to catch up to them after a big move.
(((Raia)))
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Wow, what a cool landmark!!
I know that sense of discombobulation. Since I grew up in Texas, the whole time I lived in Utah I thought of Texas as home. Now that I'm back here, though, it's become a lovely place of memory, but it isn't necessarily my place. I don't think I have a home. I have a few friends that are very close, though.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Pepek: I have to agree with you on that one... but it still makes you think. Well, it made me think.
Kama: Thank you. And that makes a lot of sense.
Zev: Definitely. And I'm always at home when I'm with those I love, but I still wondered what my actual definition of "home" is... I felt like writing about that, it seemed an appropriate time.
Eduardo: I'm here for a year, and then returning to the states... so once I again I have no idea where I'll be, or what home will constitute after this year.
Tom: I don't think that's very presumptuous of you, I sort of left it open in my post, and I have no idea myself whether or not it's my home... I don't know if I had that gap or not, but I still don't really feel that it's filled, whether or not it's actually there.
Elizabeth: Exactly. I completely identify with your story... that's how it's always been when I came back to visit here... that's why this is so difficult.
Bob: That's the OTHER reason it's so difficult... that's so true, people who've lived in one spot all their lives really don't realize it.
Ben: Garden State?
breyerchic: Thank you. You've influenced me too... all my friends, Hatrack, Bloomington and otherwise have. Which is why defining home is so difficult.
twinky: I've never heard of that song... but that line seems to make a lot of sense to me.
Sopwith: (((((Sopwith))))) You're probably right about that.
kat: The friends really help, don't they? They don't help define home, but they help get past that.
Thanks for the insight everyone... I have much to ponder now!
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
There's a line in Garden State that says "You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? That idea of home is gone. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Oh, ok, I get it... thanks!
Posted by Christy (Member # 4397) on :
I remember going "home" to visit my parents and realizing that it was no longer home.
I think for a place to be home you have to be willing to invest yourself into that place -- its daily habits, its people, a comfortable spot to call your own and friends to share it with, and these habits take time to become comfortable and worn in.
I guess for some, the particular of the land must be their "comfortable spot" For me, its always been room-oriented. I feel at home when I have a place with a good living room that has been lived in a bit -- read in, entertained in, lounged in, etc. My home is very important to me and being back comforts and recharges me like nothing else.
I hope you find your home, Raia, but I'm pretty sure you will. It may be in a bit of transition right now, but you'll build it strong.
And since I'm waxing sentimental, I'm going to add Tom's poem here.
Two newlyweds were hurrying to refinish their home Ahead of winter weather and a second set of loans, But it always seemed, no matter what, their work was never done; No sooner would they patch a hole than find another one. And he grew tired of hammering, and she got sick of grout – So even as they fixed the house, each dreamed of moving out. The day they put the plumbing in, it nearly came to blows When he forgot to kill the main (so water overflowed And wrecked the downstairs drywall two days before her mom Had promised she’d be dropping by to see how far they’d come.) But as they sat there steaming, sunlight flashed and lit her hair In rivulets of cinnamon; she caught sight of his stare, And smiled wryly back at him, amusement in her eyes, Before he pulled her to her feet to silence stillborn sighs.
She wove her left hand’s fingers through the fingers of his right, Then passed him down the pliers; she took up the putty knife. Did it matter, the next morning, that the job took twice as long? They may have built it slowly, but they slowly built it strong.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I've been noticing that too Raia, even though I'm not nearly so far away.
This is my illustration of how I feel, it doesn't particularly have a point.
I don't know if you've ever played it, but we have and IUopoly game at our house, which is just like Monopoly, except we know every street and place on the board personally. I'm sure there's Purdueopoly out there somewhere, but if I were to play it I wouldn't know the things on, it would just be another campus. It's weird to know that soon this campus will be mine, and I'm a stranger to it.
Posted by Sara Sasse (Member # 6804) on :
I'll save myself the trouble of trying to write out something not nearly so eloquent and just ditto Christy.
quote: I think that my return to Israel has really opened my eyes to the fact that the dreams and hopes I had of eliminating this sort of internal conflict once I reached here are nothing more than idle wishes.
This might be different for everyone, but I've not yet found a timeless answer for that unsettled feeling. At most I've gotten a week or two here or there without it, generally when I was extremely and obsessively involved in something else larger than myself.
It might just be part of the human condition, at least for some of us. Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Raia,
I've been restless recently, and I'm wondering if it is still the same issue that you are dealing with. I understand BtLs connection to the coast. I miss the mountains too. But I have a home, that I am helping pay for and fix up in the physical sense of the word, yet I still feel restless like I'm not quite at *home*.
AJ
Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
Home... yeah, well this is a little bit tough for me too. I don't feel at home at my parents house since the day I left it to come to France. The first few weeks were kind of hard, I kinda felt that I had no home... But then, as I started to know the people around me, the places, to speak the language a little better, Roune has become my new home. When I was on holiday I was almost always anxious to go back to Rouen, to my "home".
Then, after two years, I moved to Lyon. Fortunately my brother was already there, and this helped me feel at home very fast. There were some friends of mine from Rouen who came there too, and thanks to my brother I made new friends rather quickly.
After another two years, I once again moved. I'm now in Montreal. Nothing feels like home here, not the streets, not the buildings, not the people. I still have a couple of friends who are here with me, but we're all in the same situation. Anyway, this will probably turn into "home" in about a month, but...
In four month I'm going back to Lyon. "Home again" ?
Actually... I have a place where I always feel at home. It's my grandparents house. The problem is that I went there last time during the winter holidays and probably not going back until this winter, so it's not like it's a candidate for my current "home".
I never felt homesick though. I don't know why that is, I was kind of close to my parents before coming here, and still I didn't miss them a lot. And after all this moving around I'm also used to see my friends come and go. I actually keep contact with some of them, but most of them are just memories now...
And then there's always my net-home, right here on Hatrack. It's not a joke, or an over-statement, it's true.
Raia, I hope you'll find your home pretty soon. And don't worry about having to addapt, it's natural. Heck, yesterday there was a Canadian student who lived here in Montreal, then went to China for 8 years, and now she came back, and she thinks things around here are STRANGE ! I mean, she lived here and still feels this way, so I say give yourself some time and you'll finally be "home".
((((Raia))))
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hey, wow, my wife quoted me. I love you, darling.
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
(((Raia))) I, too have been struggling with the question of where home is. One thin I know for sure is that Hatrack is a home. I'm not sure exactly what "home" is, but Hatrack feels like one to me.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Christy (and Tom )... that was beautiful. Thank you for that!
Everyone else... Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
My family used to take month long vacations to the east coast every summer. We'd stop by my grandparents house in Massachussets for a few days then go up to a house on White Oak pond in New Hampshire for a few weeks, then go down to Cape Cod for a week, and then spend a few more days at my grandparents house on the way to B-ton. I was born in Conneticutt, and lived there for the first 3 and a half years of my life. I barely remember it, but I still feel a real and strong connection to the east coast. Its the same kinda "land connection" that Elizabeth and Raia described. But after about a week in New Hampshire I'm ready to go home. I'm ready to come back to B-ton, back to my friends, back to the people I love, back to my house here. I'm ready to go home. The east coast is my second home, and its where I plan to go to college, I love it there, and feel more at ease in the White Mountains of New Hampshire than most other places on the planet, that I've been. The east coast is my SECOND home. I love the place, I love the people, but its not home home.
Home home is where the heart is... and that is B-ton(for the most part, a part of it went to Israel for a year ).
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
*IwillnotcryIwillnotcry*
((((((((((((((((Alcon)))))))))))))))))))
Posted by MaydayDesiax (Member # 5012) on :
It's strange--I agree with the whole 'land connect' thing: I feel it when I turn down the curvy paved road to the house I was raised in.
I also feel it when I drive onto LSU campus and see the old, knarled oak trees and weather-worn brick buildings.
I also, however, get the feeling of going home when I step off an airplane and I know that Bernard's at the end of the terminal.
When I finally get back to his room in Beloit, I also feel at home--I even know where everything is kept.
My home is wherever I feel comfortable, wherever I feel loved. Even if it's just a place online, even if it's just a person, even if it's just an empty house. ((((Raia))))
You'll find your place like I found mine.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
This thread reminds me of one of my favorite songs:
"You're My Home" by Billy Joel
When you look into my eyes And you see the crazy gypsy in my soul It always comes as a surprise When I feel my withered roots begin to grow Well I never had a place that I could call my very own That's all right, my love, 'cause you're my home
When you touch my weary head And you tell me everything will be all right You say, "Use my body for your bed And my love will keep you warm throughout the night" Well I'll never be a stranger and I'll never be alone Whenever we're together, that's my home
Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike Indiana's early morning dew High up in the hills of California Home is just another word for you
Well I never had a place that I could call my very own That's all right, my love, 'cause you're my home
If I travel all my life And I never get to stop and settle down Long as I have you by my side There's a roof above and good walls all around You're my castle, you're my cabin and my instant pleasure dome I need you in my house 'cause you're my home. You're my home.
Posted by tt&t (Member # 5600) on :
quote: Home is many things
That statement, for me at least, is very true. Home has been many different things throughout my life, places, people, family, feelings... and I know the feeling of homesickness only too well. When I was at boarding school, all I ever wanted to do was go home, to the farm, where I belonged. When my family came to visit me, it was great to see them, and it was like they were bringing a little piece of home with them, but there was nothing like going HOME to see them there. It was completely different. I know exactly what Elizabeth means when she says she would get to a certain point and relax, and be happy. I still love going back there, even though my family have moved from that farm now. It's a place of great importance and many memories.
My "new" home is a house that my family built. Everything about it has significance, -- those walls my Dad and Grandad put up, those nails my whole family hammered, the whole house is OURS. Not to mention the fact that my family live there. Going there always relaxes me, I can just be myself around them... it's like nowhere else on earth.
I hate being somewhere that I don't "belong", and when I get sad or something bad happens, I always want to run home and be safe.
Home is sometimes on a horse... in the forest or galloping along the beach... thinking, this is where I belong, this is what I was meant to do, this is what I was made for. Home can be in the arms of someone you love, or standing on top of a mountain looking down on a place that you hold dear. Home, for me, will never be in the city. Yes, home is many things, and like family, hugely important to me.
Shani, thank you for writing this. I'm so glad that you have many things that you can consider home, for you surely deserve them. You've been a good friend, you're an awesome person, and I don't get to talk to you nearly enough these days. Take care, sweetie, and keep smiling. Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Mayday: Thank you. I'm sure I will.
Elizabeth: I like that song too... it's funny, it never even crossed my mind when I was writing this thread... but now it seems so appropriate!
Kylie: Thank you. You've been a great friend too, and I definitely look forward to talking to you more! I'm glad I got to know you.
Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
The only time I've lived somewhere else than Blount County, Tennessee was when I went to Poughkeepsie, New York for one and a third semesters of college. It made me realize how much I considered the South home. All my life I had wanted to get away from there. I dreamed of living in California or New York, but now I realize I love it here. I love coming back to my bed after being away for awhile. But there are some places I've been that I feel like I could move to and not miss my house. Like Austin, Texas, and Beaufort, South Carolina. I suppose I consider home wherever my family is, though.
*hugs* I'm glad I've gotten to know you from Hatchat. It's a shame you haven't been there in so long. Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
There were times when I was young when my dad had to leave me at my grandparents' house for a while. (he was single and trying to finish school)
I can still remember and feel running into his arms when he rreturned. He had a certain smell, sort of sharp and cold, like a bright winter day. Like home.
My husband has a certain smell, and I feel at home when I am in his arms. Which leads me to some of my favorite lyrics, which might seem kind of yucky, but boy are they true for me:
"Romantics set aside Along with my cheap suit and cologne One smell of your armpits Is proof enough that I'm home"
"Need You More and More," Jeb Puryear
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
*hugs RRR* It's been nice getting to know you too. And once I have internet established in my dorm room, I'll be able to visit Hatchat more often!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Raia, metukah, I believe with all my heart that Yerushalayim is Home to all Jews. It is a connection far deeper than knowing where the best pizza is (although that is surely nothing to be sneezed at! ), or other similar details. But that doesn't mean that other places cannot be home as well.
I have visited many cities, in many countries, and cannot imagine living anywhere but in Southern California -- except Israel, and that is not currently an option for me.
Having recently moved back into my childhood home for the year -- a place that will always be home, and yet really isn't any longer, even though I am living here again -- I find myself wondering what "home" really means as well.
Congrats on 3000, Raia! And I can't wait to see you, at Home , in just a couple weeks! Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
I definitely agree that there is the Jewish connection to Jerusalem... it's interesting that I hadn't thought of that when I wrote my spiel. But it's true that that's not really the home I meant, and I think you're right that there can be more than one. And I am SO looking forward to seeing you here, home or otherwise, later this month!! Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
Raia,
Not having an answer is okay. I think your landmark was beautifully written, and I think that eventually you'll know exactly what "home" means to you.
space opera
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Thanks, Space Opera. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Thank you for sharing this. Of all of the posts I have read by you, this is the one that resonated most with me. I don't have any advice or answers--just empathy. Home was never my parents' house. For me as a teenager, home became this idea of safety, community, warmth, hospitality, etc. And through popular culture, particularly the music I liked, I came to see these qualities that embodied what home ought to be for me in a romanticized vision of the South. I saw the South as a place where people valued hospitality, tradition, their elders (ironic, since I didn't, but there you go), the land, and a slower pace. What's funny about this is that, while technically I have always lived in the South, the parts of Florida where I grew up and where I live now really have more in common with New York or New Jersey than they do with the South. And, as a latino who grew up Catholic, I know--and have seen firsthand--that there are elements of the South that would be less than hospitable to me. (But then again, I don't think a culture should be judged by its worst elements, but maybe by its best.) The first time I moved out, I moved to Tennessee and found that connection with the land that Elizabeth talks about. I also found this while living in North Carolina and South Carolina. In a very real sense, each, particularly South Carolina, was home to me. (I regret that I can't live there now, but there were no jobs to be had, and now I have family that finds the climate of Florida more healthy to live in.)
And yet, when I moved to South Carolina, I found myself becoming slightly depressed, and finally realized that my malaise was homesickness--not for any physical home, but for the people I had left behind. Knowing the source of my unhappiness made it easier to deal with, and I hope it does the same for you. For what it's worth, the feeling will pass. It will pass more quickly the more you make new connections where you are now.
It may not be my place to say this, and I apologize if I give offense, but be careful when you finally get internet in your dorm. If I had had Hatrack when I was in South Carolina, I might not have made the friends that made it more fully my home. It's too easy to come here when you're down instead of going out and living life where you are. You might want to place mental guidelines in place, like maximum amounts of time or maximum number of posts, or particular days and times when you will go online. Hatrack enriches my life, but would be a poor substitute for living it.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Icarus, that's the wisest thing I've heard all day... I think I have been relying on Hatrack a lot to get through this. Now that you mention that, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for opening my eyes to that. I'll be aware now, I honestly hadn't noticed before. But yeah, I think that's what I've been trying to do.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Home is where I can be myself.
But I relate to your dilemna. I was born in Maryland and always felt that was important, since it is on the other side of the river from where all my younger siblings were born. I felt I was somehow more American, being born in a State that never seceded (I learned later that this was only narrowly the case).
Fast forward to age 22, when by coincidence my husband is stationed in Maryland. What dawned on me was what odd names the towns in Maryland have. The only one I can remember offhand is Odenton. There was some really odd ones, though. And we never even went to Blob's Polka Palace. But I still have a special warmth for films set in Maryland. That doesn't include thrillers that center around D.C.
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
I know what you mean... whenever there's a film set somewhere I used to live, ESPECIALLY Israel, I get all excited. Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
*nod*
Me too.
(Except I hated how in Bad Boys there are no latinos anywhere in Miami except for drug dealers. None in the police department, none working as clerks in stores or other extras. But go looking for drug dealers, and there they are!! )
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
Ugh, Icarus, I hate that. It always really ticks me off. I haven't seen Bad Boys, but I hear ya.
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Raia![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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)... that was beautiful. Thank you for that!![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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