Chlanna
Home
Home is a concept, really. It is where you ‘are’ in the centre of your being. For most people, ‘home’ is generally ‘where one feels most safe and comfortable’, and it often relates back to family, where one grew up, etc.
In my case, I had a very solid family foundation early on, but it was ripped away around the same time that my Great-Grandmother died. There’s a blog post on “Family” which tells more about that, but I’m not sure I should post it. Grandma Sherrill had been the heart and the centre of Home, and when she was no longer here, so many family traditions left with her. For many reasons, this left me more or less adrift for many years.
But Home for me has become a combination of things.
I originally thought and felt that my Home was finding the things I had always loved and surrounding myself with them. As time has worn on and I have given up the idea of ever finding my soulmate and not willing to settle for less, I’m also okay with living alone. I like things just so, and after having had a long-term roommate, I will never, EVER compromise how I live or what I want to do again to live diplomatically with another person. I think I missed my window with the soulmate, but I always thought he’d accept me As I Am. Maybe that’s not rational; I can admit I am not much of an adult and my maturity rather levelled out around the age of nineteen or so.
If you read the essay about “Gothy is as Gothy Does”, you’ll see references to being German. I grew up thinking I was initially about 100% German-American. When I was about twelve or thirteen, I found out my very-off-the-boat, former Kaiser’s Guardsman Grandpa Nuffer was not really my grandfather and my Mom was not German. Like, at all. My last name and my face reveal a strong German influx, as I look very Prussian and exactly like my Dad and his Twin. (Which, sadly, also means I look very masculine, which is not a good thing when you grow up in a female body.) When I go to the Heidelberg Haus, they often start speaking Deutsch to me (and I understand it; I spent years learning German). And because We Never Spoke About Mom’s Family EVER, I always presumed ‘Carlyle’ was a French name. (Go ahead and snigger.) But I identified as German, because America can be a wonderful place, but it has very little mutual history for the immigrants who settled here. ‘American history’ is a laughable subject in school. Like a lot of people who grow up in America, that sense of having been cut off from my past and my legacy began to grow as I grew older.
I used to think genetics and DNA were only biology. But there is one very remarkable thing that continued to happen all my life that make me wonder if there’s more than simply molecules and chemicals coming together to determine who and what we are.
I have been an Anglophile for most of my life, but that turned into my life’s study of Celtia and Wales and Scotland in specific, Ireland a bit less so, and generally from Pre-History to the Dark Ages. When I say ‘life’s study’, I mean that I own professional, authoritative and scholarly books concerning history and archaeology, folklore and mythos. If you don’t know the difference between a regular ‘history book’ and what I’m referring to, what I term a ‘regular history book’ is focused on a casual/popular history audience and will cost much less than $100 after the large print run of the books comes out and is carried in chain bookstores. They often have lots of big, white margins, extra spacing between the lines, and they don’t often run past three hundred pages in length.
Professional, scholarly books are on the university or professional level, are much more complex and detailed, with copious footnotes, references, and are generally on the cutting-edge of their subjects at the point in time in which they are released. Small, cramped type, thin margins, and a lot more information without the basic explanations are in these books. They often cost several hundred dollars and are in small print runs that jack the prices up even higher when you understand they’re generally only available in their country of origin and have to be imported to America. The internet has given me a lot of access to these, but it’s an ongoing Damocleasian swordfight with what I can afford right now versus that ever-growing list of books I desperately want and/or need (which runs into several hundred volumes). I also grew tired of reading translations, so I’m bouncing back and forth between Scots Gaelic, Cymraeg, and dealing with Irish while it altered from ‘Old Form Irish’ to ‘New Form Irish’ in the past thirty years (and I have books from both periods). Many books are up on Celtic/uni websites that have been scanned in over the past fifty years, but I hate reading on a computer. Although I did give in and buy a few CDs/DVDs that have about 350 total ancient books I would have to go to England or Ireland to read the hardcopies. Worse, with the Pictish Symbol Stones I’m obsessed with and my firm conviction they are star charts, I’ve veered into astroarchaeology in the past six to ten years. OUCH!
Essentially, I am deep in research and have been for decades. I have another blog dedicated to this astroarchaeology and some of my findings, but I am also torn between the idea of publishing them ‘now’ or waiting and writing a book, since I think I’ve discovered a few things I would hate to see put into the books of other people before I could publish. More on all that later.
But all throughout my life, I have experienced this ‘thing’ where I will see a landscape in either a photo, a movie, or on television, and without knowing where it was, I would say aloud, “That is where I’m from”, and it would turn out to be Scotland, in the Strathclyde area. Every, single time. All my closest friends have witnessed this for years, and this was with all the ribbing I got from my former roommate, who would always say, “But you’re German and French!” I’ve also always said my ultimate life dream would be to move to Scotland and raise sheep.
About ten years ago I finally glommed onto the knowledge that the Carlyles were Scottish. It was only within the last three years I had my DNA tested (thank you, Uncle John!) and discovered I am not, in fact, 100% or even 50% German. But I am predominantly Scottish, with quite a bit of those coloured dots on my DNA map concentrated in Strathclyde, and the name “Carlyle” is not only Strathclyde Briton (i.e., Welsh), but it means “The Stronghold of Lugh”. Despite the vagaries of naming conventions (another entirely different essay, but leave it to say that last names being ‘set in stone’ is a relatively modern thing), most people with similar last names are not necessarily related. However, it turns out some families are, and the Sykes families in Yorks and the Carlyles in Strathclyde are two that actually ‘mostly are’. The likelihood of two Carlyles (in all their varied spellings: Carlisle, Carlysle, etcetera, because more standardised spelling is also fairly modern) from two different areas of the world being related and originally descended from Strathclyde are statistically quite good.
Which means that all those years I thought I was predominantly German, I was still recognising what was the real homeland of the majority of my DNA. I do not believe in ghosts and I am one of those extremely logical people who does not have time for fantasy when it comes to pretending to be what one is not, but I found this to be remarkable. I no longer say, “That is where I’m from”, I say: “I bet that’s Strathclyde” when I see an initially unidentified landscape that makes my heart leap.
Ultimately, that’s my Home.
Home is a concept, really. It is where you ‘are’ in the centre of your being. For most people, ‘home’ is generally ‘where one feels most safe and comfortable’, and it often relates back to family, where one grew up, etc.
In my case, I had a very solid family foundation early on, but it was ripped away around the same time that my Great-Grandmother died. There’s a blog post on “Family” which tells more about that, but I’m not sure I should post it. Grandma Sherrill had been the heart and the centre of Home, and when she was no longer here, so many family traditions left with her. For many reasons, this left me more or less adrift for many years.
But Home for me has become a combination of things.
I originally thought and felt that my Home was finding the things I had always loved and surrounding myself with them. As time has worn on and I have given up the idea of ever finding my soulmate and not willing to settle for less, I’m also okay with living alone. I like things just so, and after having had a long-term roommate, I will never, EVER compromise how I live or what I want to do again to live diplomatically with another person. I think I missed my window with the soulmate, but I always thought he’d accept me As I Am. Maybe that’s not rational; I can admit I am not much of an adult and my maturity rather levelled out around the age of nineteen or so.
If you read the essay about “Gothy is as Gothy Does”, you’ll see references to being German. I grew up thinking I was initially about 100% German-American. When I was about twelve or thirteen, I found out my very-off-the-boat, former Kaiser’s Guardsman Grandpa Nuffer was not really my grandfather and my Mom was not German. Like, at all. My last name and my face reveal a strong German influx, as I look very Prussian and exactly like my Dad and his Twin. (Which, sadly, also means I look very masculine, which is not a good thing when you grow up in a female body.) When I go to the Heidelberg Haus, they often start speaking Deutsch to me (and I understand it; I spent years learning German). And because We Never Spoke About Mom’s Family EVER, I always presumed ‘Carlyle’ was a French name. (Go ahead and snigger.) But I identified as German, because America can be a wonderful place, but it has very little mutual history for the immigrants who settled here. ‘American history’ is a laughable subject in school. Like a lot of people who grow up in America, that sense of having been cut off from my past and my legacy began to grow as I grew older.
I used to think genetics and DNA were only biology. But there is one very remarkable thing that continued to happen all my life that make me wonder if there’s more than simply molecules and chemicals coming together to determine who and what we are.
I have been an Anglophile for most of my life, but that turned into my life’s study of Celtia and Wales and Scotland in specific, Ireland a bit less so, and generally from Pre-History to the Dark Ages. When I say ‘life’s study’, I mean that I own professional, authoritative and scholarly books concerning history and archaeology, folklore and mythos. If you don’t know the difference between a regular ‘history book’ and what I’m referring to, what I term a ‘regular history book’ is focused on a casual/popular history audience and will cost much less than $100 after the large print run of the books comes out and is carried in chain bookstores. They often have lots of big, white margins, extra spacing between the lines, and they don’t often run past three hundred pages in length.
Professional, scholarly books are on the university or professional level, are much more complex and detailed, with copious footnotes, references, and are generally on the cutting-edge of their subjects at the point in time in which they are released. Small, cramped type, thin margins, and a lot more information without the basic explanations are in these books. They often cost several hundred dollars and are in small print runs that jack the prices up even higher when you understand they’re generally only available in their country of origin and have to be imported to America. The internet has given me a lot of access to these, but it’s an ongoing Damocleasian swordfight with what I can afford right now versus that ever-growing list of books I desperately want and/or need (which runs into several hundred volumes). I also grew tired of reading translations, so I’m bouncing back and forth between Scots Gaelic, Cymraeg, and dealing with Irish while it altered from ‘Old Form Irish’ to ‘New Form Irish’ in the past thirty years (and I have books from both periods). Many books are up on Celtic/uni websites that have been scanned in over the past fifty years, but I hate reading on a computer. Although I did give in and buy a few CDs/DVDs that have about 350 total ancient books I would have to go to England or Ireland to read the hardcopies. Worse, with the Pictish Symbol Stones I’m obsessed with and my firm conviction they are star charts, I’ve veered into astroarchaeology in the past six to ten years. OUCH!
Essentially, I am deep in research and have been for decades. I have another blog dedicated to this astroarchaeology and some of my findings, but I am also torn between the idea of publishing them ‘now’ or waiting and writing a book, since I think I’ve discovered a few things I would hate to see put into the books of other people before I could publish. More on all that later.
But all throughout my life, I have experienced this ‘thing’ where I will see a landscape in either a photo, a movie, or on television, and without knowing where it was, I would say aloud, “That is where I’m from”, and it would turn out to be Scotland, in the Strathclyde area. Every, single time. All my closest friends have witnessed this for years, and this was with all the ribbing I got from my former roommate, who would always say, “But you’re German and French!” I’ve also always said my ultimate life dream would be to move to Scotland and raise sheep.
About ten years ago I finally glommed onto the knowledge that the Carlyles were Scottish. It was only within the last three years I had my DNA tested (thank you, Uncle John!) and discovered I am not, in fact, 100% or even 50% German. But I am predominantly Scottish, with quite a bit of those coloured dots on my DNA map concentrated in Strathclyde, and the name “Carlyle” is not only Strathclyde Briton (i.e., Welsh), but it means “The Stronghold of Lugh”. Despite the vagaries of naming conventions (another entirely different essay, but leave it to say that last names being ‘set in stone’ is a relatively modern thing), most people with similar last names are not necessarily related. However, it turns out some families are, and the Sykes families in Yorks and the Carlyles in Strathclyde are two that actually ‘mostly are’. The likelihood of two Carlyles (in all their varied spellings: Carlisle, Carlysle, etcetera, because more standardised spelling is also fairly modern) from two different areas of the world being related and originally descended from Strathclyde are statistically quite good.
Which means that all those years I thought I was predominantly German, I was still recognising what was the real homeland of the majority of my DNA. I do not believe in ghosts and I am one of those extremely logical people who does not have time for fantasy when it comes to pretending to be what one is not, but I found this to be remarkable. I no longer say, “That is where I’m from”, I say: “I bet that’s Strathclyde” when I see an initially unidentified landscape that makes my heart leap.
Ultimately, that’s my Home.