Returning Home

The home of my childhood no longer exists - I now live a life of transcendental homelessness.

The sentimental word "home" embodies a paradoxical place and time that can never be returned to. I left my home a few years ago. My childhood home changes without me, so when I return it's different. And home is the antithesis of difference - home is the security of sameness and familiarity.

So am I damned to wander in eternal homelessness?

My Homes

Enumclaw
Home is Enumclaw, Washington - an interesting name for an peculiar place. My dad moved to this small town, located at the bottom of Mt Rainier, when he was in high school. It's your typical small American town. For instance, some of the teachers my dad had while going to high school were some of our teachers. And my dad still holds a track record that my brother Tyson failed to beat. We have a Christmas parade and homecoming parade.



This is the view from my kitchen and family room. There is nothing more beautiful than the valley in Enumclaw Washington.

Jerusalem

I'm not Jewish - as my family reminds me daily - nor do I have recent ancestral ties to this land. But, I've never felt such a spiritual connection with a place. How can you feel like you're coming home when it's the first time you've been there? I believe that a piece of my identity remained buried in this land waiting patiently for me to return and exhume it.

London

Jerusalem is my love, but Britain is my soul-mate - we are a match made in heaven. The people are just like me: reserved, introverted, and sarcastic. I love everything about this city and I miss it everyday.

So what’s the problem if I have these homes?

While visiting Wales, I discovered a Welsh poet named David Abse and one of his poems describes my distress of returning home.

“The journey to Cardiff seemed less a return than a raid
On mislaid identities"

"And still I love the place for what I wanted it to be
As much as for what it unashamedly is
Now for me, a city of strangers, alien and bleak."

"No sonner than I'd arrived the other Cardiff had gone,
Smoke in the memory, those but tinned resemblances,
Where the boy I was not and the man I am not
Met, hesitated, left double footprints and walked on."

So I'm afraid that the act of returning home will destroy it.