"home"

Being away from home so much gives me frequent occasions to reflect on the nature of “home” and my ever-present desire to live elsewhere than where I do. I have lived in Indianapolis for a little over 8 years, and only recently have I found that I miss it when I’m not there. There is a certain feeling I have when the plane is approaching, or I see the signage for local highways, and I feel a sense of relief. I still feel, and I fear I may have this with everyplace I go, that it’s not “me.” That I’ll know where I am meant to be when I get there. I have several favorites, Los Angeles, Bloomington, and others, but what would it be like to live there? Have human beings always been dissatisfied with their surroundings, or have we only recently begun to dislocate ourselves?

I have had a few “homes” throughout the years, but I believe myself incapable at this point of having the willingness to settle down. I think I’ll know when it’s time, though. Right now, there is too much wanderlust coursing through my veins, too much excitement and adventure to let up. And why not live like this for now? Go big and then go home, right? Greatness often comes in packages as ephemeral as they are breathtaking. I think of ideas, structures, celebrity, love, lust, fashion, politics, heroism. Are we creatures meant to stay in one spot, be with one person, have one goal? I certainly don’t feel that way right now.

Alternatively, I do have faith, or maybe the socially acceptable norm has got me in its clutches, that when I “grow up,” I will “settle down.” Get a real job, get married and have kids and fade away. Bullocks. I want to be big, change things on a bigger scale. Yes, I want the love and the kids and a nice home, but it all goes back to my original thought in writing this: what is home? What dictates where we go?

I think I will let more to come with this thought…


and this is a portrait of mao on the side of an abandoned building in downtown tampa.