Writing

Home is Where I Want to Be, Pick Me Up and Turn Me ‘Round.


They say, “You can never go home again.”

Who says that?

I want to know!

According to Quoteland.com, it’s a dude name Thomas Wolfe, but that’s not confirmed.

Ok, so Thomas Wolfe maybe once said, “You can never go home again.”

Well, Thomas Wolfe, you’re wrong!

I think you meant childhood. If you actually wrote “childhood”, you’d be spot on.

Because I’m discovering something, Thomas Wolfe- you can go home again!

When I first moved to L.A., I immediately transformed into a discombobulated head floating in the smoggy atmosphere of the city. As I waved good-bye to familiarity, I continued swimming deeper and deeper into the grey-orange abyss, only occasionally brushing against solidity. I’d touch down for a moment or two, only to be shot back up into the clouds, letting them take me wherever they’d like. My feet weren’t planted here, but they were no longer planted in my hometown either. Every trip back to New York, I felt a deeper disconnect all the while reading “Less Than Zero”. While I was in NY, I’d long for the bustle of L.A. traffic, the lights under Mulholland, and the smells of Venice Beach (no matter how good or bad they may be). And though I could barely wait for my plane to land at Long Beach Airport, I’d feel the energy instantly sucked out with the opening of the plane door. From there, I’d climb back into my little empty, plastic bubble waiting curbside that would carry me back through town and into daily life, always keeping my feet from touching the ground.

It wasn’t until 3 years in, I noticed that the plastic film had shed away. I looked down and saw that both feet were firmly planted in the Los Angeles dirt. How my roots penetrated that compacted, dry dirt is beyond me, but they had forced through, wrapping tightly amongst the few stable anchors I could find. And there those roots have laid and will continue to lie, though I’m moving to a new city in a few days. I can’t pry them, I can’t sever them, I can only extend them. In contemplating this, it was then I realized that I had roots still firmly planted somewhere else too. In the place I thought I had pulled up in years ago. I traced back to my hometown, where I did some much needed cleaning and nurturing of my roots. And for the first time, I saw the beauty that lies in my hometown, in Central NY, in the place I once so desperately wanted to leave, but now felt such an undying connection to. Appropriately, I spent the entire trip looking at the grass. Something L.A. doesn’t have.

Then I realized that you can have more than one home…and you can go back any time you like.

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1 Comment

  • Reply Jon Ray November 19, 2008 at 6:50 am

    As I follow your journey in reverse from Austin to LA, your steps backwards, one behind the other, I can’t help but hope you might call Austin home for a while.

    Sending thoughts that you find the questions you’ve, deep down, always known the answers to 😉

  • Leave a Reply to Jon Ray Cancel Reply