Wisdom sits in places. - Keith Basso

In this, the 2nd of 4 post of entries for the 'Where's Home?' exercise, we explore the feeling of home as a place.  These amazing entries by Adele Schmalenberger,  Bill Ellis,  Jane Belford, Mary Ann Kaufman,  Judy Rapp, Maria Hodkins, Gayle Roberts and Krayna Castelbaum are delightful explorations of place and the longing for that space called home.  Thank you all for participating!

The winners for this category of 'Home as a place' are: Adele Schmalenberger (CA), Bill Ellis (WA) and Maria Hodkins (CO). These 3 entries made me taste and hear and smell  'home'. Congratulations to all three of you!  You will receive heirloom wildflower seeds for the place you call home (Bill, that may be a little tricky for you--we'll have to work together on that one!) 

Again, big thanks to the bloggers and sites that have been and are promoting the 'Where's Home?' exercise: Patti Digh, Dave Pollard, Carl McColman, Julia Harris, Karen Crone, Gayle Roberts, Ella Moss  and any others who posted a link or article to their blogs to help promote this exercise.

Next post will be 'Where's Home? Category 3: Home is searching for us!'

Co-WINNER for this category:
Adele Schmalenberger, Ojai, California

In 1980 my parents sold their house, our home, my home. I sat in the yard with my cat in my lap and said to him to take a long look as it was to be ours no more. It was a perfect day with the sun shining merrily in its big blue home. But back on the ground, in the chair, with the cat, I was losing my first and only home.

I was 29 at the time and married to my high school sweet heart. But I see now that I had not transferred my sense of home to our house. And even now at 56, married to my second husband and father of my son, I find that I am still homeless. Oh to be sure there is a house, a yard, a chair and a cat.

But where are the rituals and the secret places? My husband has no special drawer in which he keeps the mementos of his life as my father did. There is no sewing machine in the hall available for all kinds of frippery and repairs. Ancestors do not peer from the walls. No board games are played in the living room to while away the Sunday hours accompanied by laughter and hot chocolate.

And then there were the wild places where I held court with the horny toads, king snakes, road runners and quail. Lizards and blue jays were my companions as living in the boonies meant one had to be content with the creatures, great and small, which passed through my homeland.

High in the branches of avocado and pepper trees I made castles in the sky while the bushes of the Chaparral served as forts and lairs and hidey-holes. These were my first attempts at home building. Clearly the desire was there to create, so why have I only ever since lived in houses and not a home?

My mother was the Queen of all she surveyed in that first home of mine. She has gone on to be the Queen of the all the other homes she has ruled as well. But I have only been the Queen of my Chaparral forts and pepper tree castles.

It is time now to plant my flag and declare that I am not just the laundress, cook, maid, gardener, bookkeeper, decorator and bottle-washer, but the Queen of her domain, her home. Since the King is in his counting house night and day while the not-so-young Prince only leaves his internet realm to eat, the cat and I are free to create what we will.

I wonder how long it will be before they notice my crown.

Co-Winner for this Category: Bill Ellis, Spokane, Washington 
Bill is a blogger on the Virtual Tea House

When the contest was announced I was immediately drawn to it because even after almost two years I still miss Bend (Oregon) and the people there very much.  As I began to ponder how to write about the place I miss so much I realized that Bend is not sufficient by itself to evoke the essence of home to me.  Having lived in seven different places in six different counties over a forty-five year time span I discovered that home for me is Oregon, all of it.  So here goes. (With some channeling of James Joyce)

            Home is the numbfootmaking cold of the Pacific at Newport, and the honey sweetened tea of the Sylvia Beach Hotel where a good book is only for those moments when I leave off staring at the oh-so-breathtaking storm outside. 

            Home is saddle between the North and Middle Sister where I once watched the cumulous clouds try ever-so-hard to sweep over the rime coated Cascade summits, and those women wouldn’t let them, for they were enjoying the beautiful sunny day down in Bend, and I knew then that mountains can love the weather too. 

            Home is Little Hyatt Lake where two teenaged boys caught small trout, told big stories, and wished, and wished and wished for what could not be, but it did not matter because life had bestowed a moment when adolescent fantasies caused no pain and existence was as smooth as the windless water surface of the lake. 

            Home is Powell’s, right there on Burnside, where time is measured not in hours but in the number of books browsed, and you know you have had a wonderful day even if you don’t buy a single one, and where reading the people is just as fun as reading books anyway.

            Home is Autzen stadium where for a few days each Fall I get to wear yellow and green, and care so passionately about a children’s game, and even get to be that child again who had real heroes, so that once upon a time becomes right now.

           Home is the cemetery at Cove, a tiny town outside of La Grande, where they still have real gravestones which tell the story of great love, great grief, great hopes and achievements, where the care given to the dead proves how much they value life. 

           Home is the straight road stretch of I-80 out of Arlington, and the gas station at Boardman that has the two little restaurants right next to it, and the school where my dog Gabby gets to stretch her Corgi tiny legs after being in the car for a few hours, and feel so good and free in the grass. 

           Home is Austin Junction right where it meets highway seven and you go down the winding road to Baker City, always deer watchful and ready to slow down so that both you and the deer get to where you want to go.

            Home is Crater Lake in May when one day the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see the water, but it didn’t matter because the view of the fog in the caldera was so rich and rare and I knew I would never see this again; what a blessing.

            Home is a thousand places I have been between the Ocean and the Snake, between the Columbia and the California border, but it is all one place: Oregon, where forever I will have a home, forever be home, and forever know what home truly is. 

 
Southwestern Oregon
photo by Rozy Arno 2008

Jane Belford

Home is quiet and sunny and coffee and newspaper crosswords and shoes piled under that one chair in the dining room and the wrens on the bird feeder by the back window and my flower garden with lots of weeds but lots of color and blossoms and worms and bees and soffffffft dirt and home is the washing machine running and the bump bump of the drier because it has tennis balls in it so the comforter won’t get lumpy.

And home is a laptop and a pile of papers on the dining room table and someone making absurd noises in the basement because the baseball player on the television took a called third strike or the referees must be from the Big Ten and they won’t give our team a break. And home is mold around the waterline in the toilet, but it seems like I just cleaned that the other day…

And home is my big marble bath tub filled way too full – up to my chin in hot soapy water and sometimes that is a place to cry or daydream or plan….What if….or if that happened I would have or should have said. And home is “who let Ivan out?” and “in or out, but shut the door” and “goodnight, dream sweetly.” And poetry books and loud video games and Christmas CDs. And Sunday night phone calls to grandma and “Well, get up and take a shower and then see if you’re too sick to go to school.” And home is when the lawn has been mowed and you monkey around with the garden hose spraying things because even when you’re old it’s fun to spray things……. And trees growing sort of sideways because the coolness of keeping them staked in an orderly fashion, gets tiresome and God made trees growing in all direction anyway….and people. And finding the fine line between forcing little people to grow straight and rigid and letting them have no support and not thriving at all – but maybe just crooked enough to be unique and interesting. So maybe home is where you can be crooked.

Mary Ann Kaufman 

Home is the constant thump and whirr of my sturdy washer and dryer preparing tomorrow’s baseball uniforms.  It will be game day for one or more of my four sons. 

But right now the littlest guy needs to read a book to count for his 1st grade reading minutes, and so we did.  I noticed how big his feet had become.  We cuddled in his bed while listening to the folksy melodic harmonies of the "Daddy's Sing Good Night" CD.  We said our prayers.  I heard his breathing.  One son asleep.  Three (older and more challenging) to go.  

"Kitchen's closed", I announce.  Dishwasher begins and I consider making sandwiches.  NO, I decide,   #3 son can do that tomorrow before school. So I gather up today's (actually yesterday's news) and head upstairs to join my husband.  It's quiet.  It seems their school work is complete.  Bravo.  

And I realize the boys are growing like Tom Hanks in the movie "BIG".  I wish these moments would last forever.  
The sound is broken by the variable voice of the 13 year old (#2) "Mom can we make bread for tomorrow....please!”
That is my HOME!                 

Judy Rapp, from a 37 Days Facebook dialogue

What is Home? I think that you carry 'home' inside you. I have moved house about 15 times, in various countries. Everywhere I go has quickly become home. "Let's go home" said after a night out in Siberia - we walked down the road and opened the door to our concrete flat and there was home, welcoming us in. Home has been a 5th floor apartment in Hanoi and a spacious mansion in Lahore, but 'HOME' was inside us all the time.

CLAN is different. When I think of family, I think of Ireland, the place where my ancestors lived and loved. Clan is related to home, home is more deeply satisfying when clan is near, which is why we will probably move house in a couple of years, carrying the warmth of HOME to another place. Home is where the heart is and my heart is not that closely linked with places, but with people, CLAN, in fact.

I can't equate home with self transcendence. I am lucky in that I am comfortable within my skin, maybe it is just that I have got to a place where I CAN carry home within me as part of myself. I know that wherever I am, people who visit always feel comfortable. My father always said he slept better 'at home' with me than he did in his own home, so do my friends who stay, claiming that I have a peaceful home. I am happy that people think that. It never matters where in the world I happen to be, the peacefulness seems to surround me.

You can have satellite homes, where you have a group of friends. Facebook fluff friends is a satellite home because I
have friends there, I play and laugh there, I make art under tight constraints, but manage to have fun. My husband and dog are part of my HOME and I am going there right now.

Co-WINNER FOR THIS CATEGORY: 
Maria Hodkins, Paonia, Colorado

Home...

The home fires are burning, burning, where my heart is, where my hum is, where my head lies at rest on my pillow in the tired night...home is my solace from the small, occasionally cruel, disheartening workaday world of politics and territory. It’s a place to stumble in the dark without hurting myself. Home is where I hang my things like old calico prints on the walls of my heart. My pots and pans surround me like sherpas, nodding when the pot rack swings to the demands of my cooking. My spice jars escort me in my magic caravan of the kitchen; their exotic aromas letting me travel with all the comforts of home. My earrings dangle on a board, whispering of stones, and tribes, and epochs within my grasp. My writer's bulletin board burgeons with quotes and images, coaxing me, soothing me with the Wise Ones' voices. My cherished art hangs on the wall, embalmed under glass, from the sweet hands of my sons and my own raw endeavors in the field. My things are my icons; my home is my temple--for performing the rituals of place. It is a place for flowers, candles, music, for sautéing garlic and onions, for feasting on food and life-talk. My home is soft, vibrant, colorful, textural, with a tasteful disorder, and every corner is a mother hovering over her brood of raw materials for creating.

Gayle Roberts, also known as Mountain Mama, Seattle, Washington

Journey to Home

Beth writes in her email:” It seems, at first blush, to be a simple writing exercise, but the ‘contest’ is really about helping us to explore the sacred spaces where we feel roots…connections….and the comfort that sustains us to take on life’s challenges.” Wow! That’s a big order and something I have been contemplating since she issued the challenge. Is home a physical place, a spiritual place, is it family, is it my husband’s arms, is it heaven, and is it my home state, my adopted state, or a mixture of all of the above? I think for me it is a mixture with the changes in life requiring me to be flexible and to keep home as more of a spiritual center than a physical location. Nevertheless, I live in a human body and live here on earth. My personality likes to be planted and for life to have a sense of continuity to it. As I pondered it all, I finally sat down and wrote my “journey to home”.

This summer marks our 20th year anniversary of moving across the country and resettling in another area. I was only 29 when my husband and I packed up our three little children and locked the doors on the home we had lovingly built together in the country. We said the most painful goodbye you can imagine to our families, and moved from Oklahoma to Washington State. When I was 12 I had stayed with friends for a month in Seattle and had fallen in love with the countryside.  I had never been able to let the memories of that region go, and at times would dream of it.  I would wake up with the clearest remembrances of the forests and the mountains, and even the smell of the woods.  I would look out on the scrub oaks surrounding our acreage and ponder why I continued dreaming about a place I only visited one time.

When my husband lost his job in Oklahoma, we realized we were going to have to make a decision. Either scratch out an existence where we were in a depressed economy, or start over somewhere else where he could get a good job to support our family. I thought of Washington, and we began to send resumes to company’s in that region. When he found one, I was excited to move, and yet scared. We would be moving from a large home in the country to an apartment. Housing was so much higher in Washington, that we wondered if we would ever recover financially. In looking back, I realize we had no idea of the sacrifice moving away from extended family would require of us in the years that followed.  When it all was said and done, we were 2,000 miles from anyone we knew, and we were starting over again with no resources except a job and faith that this was the road we were to take in our journey.

One of the hardest things we encountered was the cultural differences. Our accents labeled us as being transplants. People would actually turn and look at us as we talked among ourselves in a store. The children quickly lost their accents, my husband and I will probably carry a faint accent for the rest of our lives. We also had different values than the community around us. We moved from the Bible belt to the most un-churched state in the nation. People were open and friendly in Oklahoma, people tended to be more reserved in the northwest. It wasn’t long before as much as I loved the mountains, every ounce of my being longed for Oklahoma. I missed my mother; I would think I saw my brother walking on the road and then realize there was no way that could be possible. At times I would be driving along in the car and simply find myself crying. It was a hard difficult time for me, yet it was during that time I began to really grow up. Being so far from extended family, I had the opportunity to become who I was, not who they wanted me to be. As a couple we began to realize we were a unit, an independent family, and that strengthened us. We loved the outdoors, and every weekend we piled the children into the station wagon and set off for an adventure. One day at time, this land became more than a dream, it became my home.

Sometimes I fly out of state and when I fly back to Seattle, I come off the plane and smell the damp sea air and feel the cool misty rain. I take a deep breath and think, “Oh, it’s so good to be home again”. There is a saying that you never really leave a place you love, you take a part of it with you, and leave a part of yourself behind. I feel that way as well. There is a part of me that is rooted in the plains of Oklahoma. That part of me speaks with a sweet drawl, likes life slow and simple, has old fashioned values and ideas. Yet there is a part of me that loves the northwest. The free spirits that reside here, the earth conscious environment, the intellectuals that seems to gravitate to this place. And always, the mountains, trees, and water that surround me every day.

Home for me is a mixture of the places I have loved, and have been planted in. Perhaps like the rose that gets divided and transplanted, part of me remains there, and part of me is here, blooming in two places. The dividing was painful and at times I wasn’t sure I would live through it, but my soul continues to bloom.

Karen Castelbaum (aka her Yiddish name, Krayna)   
Krayna posts Poems of the Month on the Virtual Tea House

June 2008 Poem of the Month: Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower

In his book, “Poet’s Choice”, Edward Hirsch writes that this poem “should be required reading in Washington.” He imagines Abd El-Hadi as a “holy fool, an innocent dreamer who wouldn’t hurt anyone or anything.” How do you imagine him?  His struggle?  What qualities does he exude that you might seek to emulate this month?

 
Photo taken at Beit Jala, West Bank
flickr: Whirlingdervish

From the very first time I read this poem,

I loved the character the poet creates,

Abd El-Hadi, a fictional character, who

represents real folks – kind, welcoming

and good-hearted, struggling with injustice.

This poet reminds me that unless we are in

relationship, it is all too easy to make enemies

and scapegoats of ordinary people, some of whom

possess uncommon intelligence. Any one who knows

this man would sooner go to his home to share *labneh,

tea, and stories, rather than put him on trial. His endless

kindness, hospitality and generosity move us to reflect

on the expression of these same qualities in our own lives.

As always, I pray this poem inspires each of us

to water seeds of loving-kindness and friendship

in these wild and crazy times.

A deep bow,    Krayna

*Labneh is a kind of cheese made with yogurt.

Abd El-Hadi Fights a Superpower

In his life

he neither wrote nor read.

In his life

he didn’t cut down a single tree,

didn’t slit the throat

of a single calf.

In his life

he did not speak

of the New York Times

behind its back,

didn’t raise

his voice to a soul

except in his saying:

“Come in please,

by God, you can’t refuse.”

Nevertheless –

his case is hopeless,

his situation desperate.

His God-given rights are a grain of salt

tossed in the sea.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

about his enemies

my client knows not a thing.

And I can assure you,

were he to encounter

the entire crew

of the aircraft carrier Enterprise,

he’d serve them eggs

and labneh

fresh from the bag.

~ Taha Muhummad Ali, Palestinian Poet