2-18-11

 

 

Where is home? From the comfort of my ergonomic desk chair I can watch a live webcam of my "hometown" Auburn, Alabama, a place to which I moved at age 13 and then proceeded to grow up, marry, graduate, and leave. I watch from afar and grieve for the trees, but also for my loss of place. I am not there. I have not lived there in 25 years. But I can close my eyes, and get in my old yellow '75 VW Rabbit and drive around town with the windows down and smell the warm red-clay-magnolia air, hear the shrill of the cicadas, and navigate as if there is a compass in my head. I can feel myself go up and over the railroad tracks on College Street. I can wind down Chewakla Drive. I can pass Glenn Dean and decide whether to take Dean over to the OA Highway, or shortcut across from Kroger. I can be there. I can be "home" in my head when I close my eyes.

Then, from the comfort of my ergonomic desk chair, I can get on Googlemaps and using street view, drive down my street where I live. I can see people, cars, trees that have been cut down, and the house where I live before I lived in it. I've lived here almost 2 years. The GoogleMap truck must have came before that, because the ginko tree out front was never that small when we moved in.

Which is home? What am I doing here? Why does my heart physically ache when I type those words? I am lost.

On an entirely different, but perhaps related thought, I watched Waiting for Superman tonight and afterwards I got to thinking about how I'm getting my students when they're seniors in college. They have not had the best educational backgrounds. They come to me with such deficiencies in math and science. I think, what can I do? These students are graduating. And then the small voice tells me, no. They are just beginning. I'm reaching down to the very very beginning to make a difference. I get to change the teachers, if they let me, before they even have the opportunity to teach the small children. I can catalizye. I have a lot to learn, and a big job to do, if I'm to do it well.

And then, we still have that problem of not feeling "home" and "grounded" and somehow that crazy poison man has poisoned me too.

Dan, I know you told me to go to bed, that I was too tired to be up any more, but I just had to get this in writing. I'm going to sleep now. Come home soon, I miss you. I am only home when you are with me. You are "home" to me.