Journey - Family - Home
There is something eerily soothing about the bus trips between DC and Cincinnati. It's a long trip, and given Greyhound's ancient infrastructure, I'm left with a dying phone battery and a lot of time to look out a darkened countryside and think.
I first moved to DC on Halloween, 2002. I had made a wreath of maple leaves in a leather braid, and I wore them on my head like a champion wears a laurel. That bus ride was shrouded in fog, and I was starting a new life in a new place. The country was dark, the trees stripped bare, and there are no lights on the highway, but your headlights. That night I felt like I was on a journey.
Every time that I have taken that 14 hour bus ride since, I have felt like there is purpose in the trip. A wedding, a funeral, a birth, a funeral, a wedding. Each time is packaged as an experience of life changing moments in my family. And this time is no different.
I come back to Cincinnati now because of the death of my grandfather (paternal side). In a month that was filled with family calamity, this was a death that was really unexpected. Approaching his 80's, if not already in his 80's, he had lived a decently long life. Unlike my father's extremely premature passing which happened at 47.
So as I sat on this bus trip yesterday, my brain was filled with thoughts of death. The countryside, dark, bare, and foreboding kind of amplified these feelings. As someone who is 36, I know that death is something that is looming. Sure, it could happen, theoretically, at any time. But my expectation of living a regular life is now bracketed by the ages of men in my family who have passed. 47. 80. There's a window. Sure, I may live to be a hundred. But there is a fear, and a growing fear about these ages. I should put it out of my mind, because no one can ever know when they will die. But I can't really help myself.
On the third leg of this trip (DC - PGH, PGH - COL, COL - CIN) I was in a window seat and a father with his little blonde son sat next to me. Wrangling the child proved a difficult task and he got on last. I looked at this tow-headed child in his camouflaged winter coat, and his blue collar father with his plastic/foam baseball cap, I was struck by the fact that this scene could just as easily have been one in my life. I was a flaxen blonde child, and my dad was a lot like this one. He held and kissed his son, and put him to sleep in the dark while he texted back and forth with someone. The child rolled his head, and kept falling asleep on my bicep. The father would shuffle the child around and eventually the boy would roll back onto me. I didn't mind. But it did kindle a little spark about family.
I have actively resisted building a family (nuclear family) of my own. Not just because I'm queer, but because I've always felt like I would not be able to provide for a stable family life. In my brain I've always told myself that I would want to be able to provide for every need. This is of course absurd, because the goal post keeps moving. And now I wonder if I would ever want to have a family at all. People tell me I would be a great father, and I probably would. But I have put it aside. Maybe for now, maybe forever. I don't know.
Of my generation of cousins (there are a few younger) all five of us are now married. And with marriage comes expectations, whether you're gay or not. And in moments when I look at death I think about generation. Will I ever raise a child? Will that child love me? Who will care for me when I grow old? Who will be there to find me when I die? Who will mourn my loss, and arrange my funeral? I know there are many friends who may step up, but no matter how distant the blood bond, there is something that calls us back to each other. These rituals of birth, adulthood, and death call us back to each other.
I am very far flung from my family. They have all settled and stayed pretty close to where we call grew up. But I have wanderlust. Much like Bilbo Baggins I have to get up and go on an adventure every once in a while. I love being a homebody, but I get itchy. I've lived from coast to coast. I've flown half way around the world. And while I may feel comfortable in different cities, I've lost something like a sense of home. My childhood home is gone. Foreclosure has taken a memory. My grandparents have begun passing over. My generation has spread themselves further. And my hometown has less and less of a reason for me to come back.
And now I mourn that loss as well.
There used to be a moment, where I would crest a hill, and see a certain wall and know that I was close to home. That moment, that landmark, stuck with me. Another moment was when we would turn a curve on 471 and I would get a peak of the skyscrapers in Cincinnati breaking through the tree line. My heart would swell, and I would feel "home." I never felt that feeling in Seattle. I don't know why, but it always felt transient. Like a place I was at to accomplish something, but not a home. I get that feeling in DC, when I see the capitol dome or the Washington monument while driving back from MD or VA. But that wall. I will probably never see that wall again, because there is less purpose to take me there. That home is gone for me. And I feel like I've lost a piece of myself, my history.
So, coming "home" isn't coming home any more. An anchor has been lifted, and I've lost some of my moorings. And with each loss in the family, I drift ever further and further away.
I first moved to DC on Halloween, 2002. I had made a wreath of maple leaves in a leather braid, and I wore them on my head like a champion wears a laurel. That bus ride was shrouded in fog, and I was starting a new life in a new place. The country was dark, the trees stripped bare, and there are no lights on the highway, but your headlights. That night I felt like I was on a journey.
Every time that I have taken that 14 hour bus ride since, I have felt like there is purpose in the trip. A wedding, a funeral, a birth, a funeral, a wedding. Each time is packaged as an experience of life changing moments in my family. And this time is no different.
I come back to Cincinnati now because of the death of my grandfather (paternal side). In a month that was filled with family calamity, this was a death that was really unexpected. Approaching his 80's, if not already in his 80's, he had lived a decently long life. Unlike my father's extremely premature passing which happened at 47.
So as I sat on this bus trip yesterday, my brain was filled with thoughts of death. The countryside, dark, bare, and foreboding kind of amplified these feelings. As someone who is 36, I know that death is something that is looming. Sure, it could happen, theoretically, at any time. But my expectation of living a regular life is now bracketed by the ages of men in my family who have passed. 47. 80. There's a window. Sure, I may live to be a hundred. But there is a fear, and a growing fear about these ages. I should put it out of my mind, because no one can ever know when they will die. But I can't really help myself.
On the third leg of this trip (DC - PGH, PGH - COL, COL - CIN) I was in a window seat and a father with his little blonde son sat next to me. Wrangling the child proved a difficult task and he got on last. I looked at this tow-headed child in his camouflaged winter coat, and his blue collar father with his plastic/foam baseball cap, I was struck by the fact that this scene could just as easily have been one in my life. I was a flaxen blonde child, and my dad was a lot like this one. He held and kissed his son, and put him to sleep in the dark while he texted back and forth with someone. The child rolled his head, and kept falling asleep on my bicep. The father would shuffle the child around and eventually the boy would roll back onto me. I didn't mind. But it did kindle a little spark about family.
I have actively resisted building a family (nuclear family) of my own. Not just because I'm queer, but because I've always felt like I would not be able to provide for a stable family life. In my brain I've always told myself that I would want to be able to provide for every need. This is of course absurd, because the goal post keeps moving. And now I wonder if I would ever want to have a family at all. People tell me I would be a great father, and I probably would. But I have put it aside. Maybe for now, maybe forever. I don't know.
Of my generation of cousins (there are a few younger) all five of us are now married. And with marriage comes expectations, whether you're gay or not. And in moments when I look at death I think about generation. Will I ever raise a child? Will that child love me? Who will care for me when I grow old? Who will be there to find me when I die? Who will mourn my loss, and arrange my funeral? I know there are many friends who may step up, but no matter how distant the blood bond, there is something that calls us back to each other. These rituals of birth, adulthood, and death call us back to each other.
I am very far flung from my family. They have all settled and stayed pretty close to where we call grew up. But I have wanderlust. Much like Bilbo Baggins I have to get up and go on an adventure every once in a while. I love being a homebody, but I get itchy. I've lived from coast to coast. I've flown half way around the world. And while I may feel comfortable in different cities, I've lost something like a sense of home. My childhood home is gone. Foreclosure has taken a memory. My grandparents have begun passing over. My generation has spread themselves further. And my hometown has less and less of a reason for me to come back.
And now I mourn that loss as well.
There used to be a moment, where I would crest a hill, and see a certain wall and know that I was close to home. That moment, that landmark, stuck with me. Another moment was when we would turn a curve on 471 and I would get a peak of the skyscrapers in Cincinnati breaking through the tree line. My heart would swell, and I would feel "home." I never felt that feeling in Seattle. I don't know why, but it always felt transient. Like a place I was at to accomplish something, but not a home. I get that feeling in DC, when I see the capitol dome or the Washington monument while driving back from MD or VA. But that wall. I will probably never see that wall again, because there is less purpose to take me there. That home is gone for me. And I feel like I've lost a piece of myself, my history.
So, coming "home" isn't coming home any more. An anchor has been lifted, and I've lost some of my moorings. And with each loss in the family, I drift ever further and further away.