I am no longer stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rental is just a fond memory as a bunch of exchange students move into it, and most of the boxes in our new home have been emptied and added to the mountainous recycling pile in the garage.
It’s funny how the big green house already feels like home. Even friends who have visited us over the last two weeks have mentioned this. The house, long forgotten, long unloved, seems to have responded to our presence, giving us a cozy place to settle into the routine that is our lives.
We are quickly learning its quirks, as I assume it is learning ours. I admit, I haven’t felt at home for a long time. We all know by now that Florida was never home, even though I lived in three different locales during my time there. It didn’t matter if I was near the House of Mouse (Orlando), within earshot of Space Shuttle launches or across the street from from the ocean.
Yet somehow, this place has become home in just a few short days. Hell, we haven’t even made our first mortgage payment yet, but the pictures are mostly hung and everything is quickly finding its rightful place to be.
It looks like we have been here months or years, not days or weeks.
As with anyone you’re getting to know, there are surprises, some pleasant, others, not so. Kat’s daughter discovered a secret button to open the garage that was inside the pantry – a very handy button we have already come to find out. The doors in the entry way and main floor bathroom seem to have minds of their own, swinging open or closed all by themselves. And someone was thoughtful enough to put a switch right next to the toilet, one that turns the bathroom fan on. How did we ever live without this?
I haven’t felt this drawn to a place in a long time. Let’s face it, Renton was never home as an adult. Sure, I was born there and grew up there. But when I was old enough to know enough, I left and never looked back.
West Seattle had a certain feeling of home, but I was never a West Seattleite. As some of you know, you have something akin to a scarlet letter on your forehead when you move there from the outside; a letter only true West Seattleites can see. It’s like being in Key West. If you’re born there, you are a Conch. If you move there, you can never be a Conch. The best you can hope for is to be a Freshwater Conch, a status you earn over a certain, though very unspecific, period of time.
And yet, I have been drawn mysteriously to other places besides this new home north of Seattle. I have a real attraction to Mystic, Connecticut, though I have never been there. Still, it calls to me.
The same is true of Italy. I have never been to Italy either but am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. I have no idea why. If it were the wine, then I should be equally drawn to Napa Valley or Yakima. It if were the food, then I should find myself wanting to live in the trolley at the Old Spaghetti Factory.
Again, I have no idea why. I was so drawn to Italy though, that I almost moved there after my tortuous days in FloriHell. I thought, hey, I’m about as close to Italy as I am going to get, so why not just put everything into storage, buy a one-way plane ticket and live and write in a villa? This is what I get for watching Under the Tuscan Sun.
I’m still sure I would have loved it there. It’s Italy after all. Good food, good wine, women in Italian shoes (and designer boots I imagine – and boy can I imagine!) and a love of life we seem to rarely find here in the states because we are always in freakout mode. We’re either indignant, judgmental, self-righteous or paranoid. Nothing is ever good enough in this land of plenty; we always want more. Bigger houses, bigger salaries, newer cars. We are so self-absorbed that we don’t know how to slow down long enough to enjoy the simplest things in life.
Maybe we just don’t feel at home. Certainly, I’ve seen others around the world who seem to be totally at home in their lives. Poor kids in Jamaica playing soccer with a half flat soccer ball. Or old men gathered around a rickety table in a rundown Bahamian park, slamming down dominoes and exchanging money like there is no tomorrow. These people seem to have a love for life, a joi de vie, that we have trouble finding.
As I said, maybe its because these folks found home, for certainly, when you find home, you find that sense of place, one where love, peace and tranquility fills your heart. You realize that while your gypsy years were indeed exciting, they were also kind of hollow. All that wanderlust wasn’t because you were adventurous; it was because you hadn’t found home yet.
I guess I finally have. I will always have a gypsy soul, mind you, but I’ve sent the wagons in the caravan on without me. I’ve traded in my wanderlust for some dirt that I can call my home, and a home that I can curse whenever it needs something fixed…
…Yes, honey, I’m coming. I know. I know. The pipes, the pipes are calling. And leaking a bit too!
Just north of the Emerald City, home sweet um…
– Robb