The Feeling of Feeling at Home

and extending that feeling to others

An Apology 
Don’t be offended that I didn’t remember you 
We were around a fire, 
both times in the dark - 
and I did notice, by the way, 
Your brunette hair, 
sharp features 
and kind eyes 
But then I saw you at the next fire 
And I didn’t know if you were from this life 
Or another of my lives. 
So I appreciated the fact 
that You told me where we met. 
“good people” I thought 
and we smiled 
But then the kids screamed, Mom! 
and the ball flew under feet. 
I made the correct joke, made you laugh, 
which is the aim. 
Now I can’t picture your face again. 
And I worry I’ll meet you, 
and soon! 
I googled facial blindness 
And fell into a diagnostic fear spiral. 
But I saw a face in the leaves today - 
More like a fabric collage 
made of dead things. 
Another was in the bathroom tile, 
Another on the faded brick of the restaurant. 
You see? 
You see what kind of brain you’re dealing with? 
You see your competition? 
I didn’t forget you out of cruelty 
or even apathy, as you’re right to assume 
So it must be something else 
Something benevolent and hopeful - like me. 
Oh person whose face and name 
converge in oblivion, 
Tell yourself it is because 
we won’t burden each other, 
that I’ve briefly forgotten you, 
or that I didn’t probe for singularities. 
You’re not alone, if it helps. 
That is, I was born for the moment! 
to say words not to ask questions. 
And this selfish justification 
of my shortcomings 
Will only soothe me momentarily, 
Until I drift off again into my own mind, 
leaving you 
Where I left you, 
that is to say, 
As if we never met. 

Home: a commonplace workbook for being here

Sometimes a working thesis just sort of creeps its way in. Through a series of accidents, the weeks take on a theme. Songs, podcasts, quick glances in books.

First I was listening to this song:

The Talking Heads "This Must Be the Place"

If “home is where I want to be,”  where is that?  How can we find that wherever we are?  Can the soul rest if and when it does find it home? This newsletter is still called You are Here, after all. And so taking a deep dive on what that means, is kind of the point.

So then I picked up this little book called the Analog Sea Review and read:

“Especially for someone as screwed up as I am, the effort is always to dissolve the barriers that inhibit this feeling of being at home.” -Leonard Cohen

From there I started thinking about comfort, this quest to be at home wherever we are. Like a turtle, body and mind, one. How do we get there? How do we extend that feeling to others?

When I was in college, I played the Paul Simon song “Homeless” a lot.  I was thinking of it then as I am now of the soul’s search for a home.  Where will I land, I wondered?  Who will I be? As though time would stop and display itself to you and say Ta-da!  Here you are!  

“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” -Groucho Marx

As a young person, I wrote a lot of bad poetry about not fitting in (I don’t know, maybe I still do), about being this singular creature in a world full of people who just seem to fit seamlessly into their spaces.  When I became a high school English teacher, I read essay after essay from students who were constantly hiding “the real me.”  The idea that I was not unique had set in by that point but it was always a good reminder.  

I wanted to shout to these students that it was ok, that everyone feels that way!  I’m sure I said it, but they weren’t ready to hear it, these heroes on their quests. And heroes can only find answers that have been there all along: Dorothy’s shoes, Harry Potter’s resurrection stone, Santiago’s circular journey in The Alchemist.  After watching my students wait for life to begin for four years, I was always happy to see them a year or so later with bold expressions that Catholic school didn’t allow for - purple hair, tattoos and piercings.  And then, a few years later, seeing what they settled into, usually a more happy medium.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi

Being at home wherever you are is a life-hack, one that everyone is constantly learning. And with social media being what it is, and all the lovely websites that ship satisfaction straight to your door, self-confidence envy is real.

The question, to get to Mr. Cohen’s point, is how to dissolve the barriers. Here’s what I tell myself:

• Build Yourself Up: Be at home with yourself.  Rupaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love anyone else. Can I get an Amen?”  Amen.  Temper this with the idea that though you have learned to love and accept yourself, you have not weaponized yourself or used it as a way of shutting people out, but letting them in. Like, don’t buy yourself a mug that says, “Bitch.” “Let people in” means being your authentic self. He who is humble shall be exalted. She who writes a blog will routinely be the architect of her own embarrassment.

• Tear other people down?: I don’t mean all the time, and not publicly. And not privately, like trolling either (who are these people?) If you’re like me, you’re far meaner to yourself than you are to anyone else.  Well, reminding yourself that everyone does not have the shit together that they claim to have, is not a bad thing. You know that your own vacation pictures do not show the “I swear I’ll turn this car around” moments.  It doesn’t hurt to picture others in that situation.  Recently, I may or may not have told my child that absolutely no one her age is cool. “They’re all petrified!” I shouted, “Every single one of them! Never forget it! You’re as cool or cooler than any of those dorks!” Hey, it got them out the door.

• Build people up: Last year, as I picked up my son from preschool, all of the other picker-uppers would stand around and refuse to make eye contact or say hello.  Storytimes were similar. No one would talk! I would think to myself, Lordy! (yes, Lordy or even lordy, lordy) Just why is it so hard to say hello, smile and ask the polite questions? We have to teach our kids how to communicate and we don’t even want to do it ourselves!

  Ask the polite question, even if it’s trite. And by the way. All of my favorite people are handy with a compliment.

  If all else fails, remind them how stupid you are.  Show up to a school function wearing two similarly colored but very different shoes and then have a good laugh about it.  

Wendell Berry: “The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don’t.”

Finding your Membership is life’s goal. Your city, your tastes, your fans, your gang, your clan, your support. I have never found one homogenous, whole group of people who all live and stay and stay the same. Many groups define me, and I’m a member of them all. I’ve always cultivated groups in each time period, each membership of my life.

And so life is adrift from one metaphorical home to another, from friends to friends, jobs to careers and so on, dragging behind you a sort of net that collects what is big enough not to fall through the spaces.  

But we do find our membership.  Sometimes, even now, we single people out for membership: I think they might be like us; She laughs with her nose, so I know I’ll like her; She seems to always know what’s going on; He likes what you like and she would be interesting to know.  We invest our time in each other and then time goes along. Then that investment of time makes us members too. And how fun to have a collection of faces that make up a sort of mosaic of you! 

OK, so once you ARE home, how can you stay content there? 

“If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

― David Bowie

Do we always make ourselves a little uncomfortable in order to keep challenging ourselves and moving forward?  We take up new hobbies, we start projects, we set goals, we join different groups to suit our personal, professional or intellectual life. While it’s great to have those histories as a cushion, it’s also fun to be with people who challenge you or inspire you intellectually.  

I did find a funny little podcast that can help you decipher if your new-found interests or hobbies are a cult. (Always important to not join a cult.)  It’s called Sounds Like A Cult, availabe wherever you get your podcasts.

And finally, in those moments when you really do feel at home, the joy and wonder of making other people feel at home, is among the most significant, and the most rewarding.  Bring out the good china, if you have it. Bring out the hand-written thank you notes.  Take comfort in someone’s house, eating their food with flourish, smacking your lips and saying “Delicious!”

Just as I was beginning to write this, the song “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” came on.  It is a goal. Be the sunshine. Feel the sunshine. My life, my life, my life, in the sunshine.  And I think what you feel when you’re feeling all at home is this lyric too:

“Feel what I feel when I feel what I feel what I’m feelin… in the sunshine.”

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