home, home... home
I found a relatively recent National Geographic -in English- in a cabinet in my apartment in Venice. I read about the killer whales, and how they're not really whales, but big ass orcas and that some of them even eat their cousin, the dolphin. I read about the discovery of a tribe of little people, just three feet tall, who somehow made their way to a SE Asian island some 18,000 years ago. And then, finally, i worked up the nerve to read about Civil War reenactors (the South's answer to the Renaissance Fair, as Jen would say) and the effort to save real battlefields from strip malls and other such suburban development. I don't know, man, something in me was really dreading what might have been in that article. Maybe it's because I knew a reenactor when I worked in a grocery store as a teenager; maybe it's because I thought he was the craziest, most obsessed bastard who ever was allowed to stock dairy products...
Well as it happens, there was a story about a 20 year-old kid who left his home in Franklin, TN to join the Confederate effort. Three years later the war made its way back to Franklin and this kid was a lieutenant, fighting for the hill on his own family's land; his house was even being used as Union headquarters. It was a losing battle for the Confederates, in fact it was a decisive victory for the Union and one could argue that the fall of Franklin ultimately ushered in the reunification of the Nation. Of course the young lieutenant was fatally wounded. He was carried from the field and into a back room of his own house on a dirty overcoat. Dying, but still lucid, the lieutenant's last words were, "Home, home... home."
After reading that I burst into tears. Burst, man. I was still more than a week from home myself, and it felt so insurmountable. I was just so tired and demoralized by Venice, by living longer in a foreign country than with my boyfriend in our new place. I couldn't see a week or so ahead, and felt as though I'd never make it back. Dramatic, yes, but that's where I was at the time.
I'm home now. And if it wasn't for Venice and a National Geographic, I may not have ever known just what that is, and how unique and significant it feels to know that you're Home. It's not where my shit it. It's not where my shoes land. It's where I'd want to die if given the choice. Home is a funny little apartment in E. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA. Home is Thai food for breakfast and bad yet portable coffee from the corner store. Home, I have come to realize, is sleeping soundly in my boyfriend's arms, and it's infinite and beautiful and mine.
And if you tell anyone that a Civil War article National Geographic made me cry I'll kick your fucking ass.
Well as it happens, there was a story about a 20 year-old kid who left his home in Franklin, TN to join the Confederate effort. Three years later the war made its way back to Franklin and this kid was a lieutenant, fighting for the hill on his own family's land; his house was even being used as Union headquarters. It was a losing battle for the Confederates, in fact it was a decisive victory for the Union and one could argue that the fall of Franklin ultimately ushered in the reunification of the Nation. Of course the young lieutenant was fatally wounded. He was carried from the field and into a back room of his own house on a dirty overcoat. Dying, but still lucid, the lieutenant's last words were, "Home, home... home."
After reading that I burst into tears. Burst, man. I was still more than a week from home myself, and it felt so insurmountable. I was just so tired and demoralized by Venice, by living longer in a foreign country than with my boyfriend in our new place. I couldn't see a week or so ahead, and felt as though I'd never make it back. Dramatic, yes, but that's where I was at the time.
I'm home now. And if it wasn't for Venice and a National Geographic, I may not have ever known just what that is, and how unique and significant it feels to know that you're Home. It's not where my shit it. It's not where my shoes land. It's where I'd want to die if given the choice. Home is a funny little apartment in E. Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA. Home is Thai food for breakfast and bad yet portable coffee from the corner store. Home, I have come to realize, is sleeping soundly in my boyfriend's arms, and it's infinite and beautiful and mine.
And if you tell anyone that a Civil War article National Geographic made me cry I'll kick your fucking ass.