Of Houses and Homes

I used to ask my students to close their eyes and imagine a place that they walked into - perhaps for the first time - and instantly felt at home. The vast majority of them would name their parents house or their grandparents house, sometimes a beloved oft-visited vacation home - rarely did they mention someplace that was shiny and new.

Now I've heard that:

Home is where the heart is.

Home is where you hang your hat.

Home is just another word for you.

I get all of that. I do. But I think there's more to it.

An example: My favorite aunt, Aunt Jennie, lived in the same suburban split level all my life. Growing up they lived about five hours away from us and I just lived for those visits to her home. I loved it there. Looking back, I couldn't tell you why. It's nothing I can put my finger on. It was just a place that made me happy. A place where people who made me happy lived.

When I was in grad school I lived much closer to her than I did to my own mom - about an hour away. I went to her house almost every weekend to study because I would get distracted in my apartment, but I could concentrate at her house. Plus she cooked for me. Once when I was sick, I bundled myself up and drove my sick self up to her house because any difficulty the ride imposed upon me would be more than balanced out by the TLC I would receive once I got there. It was not a bad decision.

A few years ago my cousin, her son, bought a beautiful HUGE house. As she was getting on in years and recently widowed, he built a wing on his house for her. It is beautiful and has about as much square footage as her whole house did. It was an amazingly loving gesture. The last time I visited her in the old place was nice - bittersweet, of course - but I was happy for her. By all of the things we measure standards by, she was trading up. Bigger, newer - you know what society values as well as I do. She was going to be livin' large.

So it took me by surprise when, as we were all packed up and ready to leave - hugs all around - I just couldn't walk out the door. I couldn't walk out that door knowing it was the last time. I was overwhelmed. Tom and the girls started packing up the car and I just sat on the steps - bewildered - overwhelmingly sad and totally surprised by my own emotions. Aunt Jennie sat down next to me. I've probably got a good 6 or 7 inches on her, but she sat down next to me and put her arm around me. I instinctively buried my head in her shoulder and sobbed. I felt guilty even as I was doing it. This was HER home. She shouldn't have been comforting me, I should have been comforting her. She didn't speak, except to say, "I know, Tam, it's ok. I know." I didn't speak at all. I didn't have any words.

I had never lived there, but it was home. And I'd never see it again.

Tom used to get annoyed - well, probably more hurt than annoyed - with me when I referred to going to my parents house as going home. But it is. My parents house is small and humble - nothing too special, certainly not in comparison to the McMansions springing up all over the place. But it makes me feel so recharged when I spend some time there - even just a very little bit of time. Recharged. Grounded. Loved. Home.

My mother always referred to her mother's house as home. "Going up home".

My grandmother referred to her mother's house as home - long after her mother had passed away, when she asked one of us to drive her to their town to visit relatives she would say, "Can you drive me down home sometime this weekend?" So even without her mother, that place was still home.

Dad's was always "The Homestead". Now the homestead conjures up images of a big sprawling ranch to me. If it does the same for you, erase that image right now. Dad's homestead - where his parents raised nine children - was a two bedroom house set up on a small hill. That's right. Nine children. Two bedrooms. The parents had a room, the girls shared a room, and the boys slept in the attic. This sounds like a nightmare to me! It sounds like home to Dad.

Because home is more than a house - and I think it's also more than the people who inhabit the house. I still love my Aunt Jennie. I still love visiting her and spending time with her in her big ole sprawling house. But it's not home.

I think it's perhaps a complicated equation involving a place and people and perhaps even time. Home has a feel and a smell and a sound. Home is a multi-sensory experience. Home cannot be forced or manufactured; home just needs to be.

Maybe I'm overthinking it (what? me? no!).

It is what it is and you know it when you feel it. What feels like home to you?

The One Where There's Cussing

I visited briefly with my parents last weekend (No! That's not what the cussing is about!). They were recalling a family vacation, taken when I was quite young. I told them I had one and only one very clear memory from that trip. We were looking at airplanes - I don't know if there was an air show or a museum or what - but there were lots of small planes. Like boats, most had a name and many were elaborately painted. One plane in particular had a picture of a red-headed pin-up girl posing provocatively painted on its side. This plane was called "The Strawberry Bitch". Old enough to sound out words, but not old enough to understand this particular word combination, I asked what 'bitch' meant. My mother turned the most interesting shades of reds and purples and said something on the order of, "That's a bad word! I never want to hear you say that word again, do you understand me? Never!" Her eye was twitching and she was pretty shaken up. I like to imagine that my sister and I looked at each other and smiled. "Bitch!" one of us would say - the whole rest of the day - causing the whole reaction all over again. In fairness to us, she really should have just calmly explained to us what it meant and why it was bad. But she didn't. She just gave it - and us - power. I remember later that night, returning to our travel trailer. My sister and I made a game of hiding in all the spots we could fit into that we knew she couldn't and yelling "BITCH!" periodically. I'm not positive, but I think by the end of the night Mom may have been weeping.

Before you think my sister and I are TOO awful, please remember that we had absolutely no idea what this word meant. Honest.

Flash forward. I'm a mom with children of my own. They are clamoring for ice cream. As I am scooping it out, they are standing so close to me I can hardly breathe. The dog wants in on whatever action is taking place, so she starts jockeying for position, too. They bump me and a scoop of ice cream lands squarely on the dogs head. Before I have a chance to think, I've exclaimed, "SHIT!" The moment it's out of my mouth I'm sorry. I get on my knees - eye level with the little girls - and say, "I am so sorry. I said a bad word and I shouldn't have. I'm very sorry that I said that. Do you forgive me?" My eldest immediately offered her forgiveness and I thanked her. Off she went with her ice cream.

The youngest held back. "I forgive you, Mommy, but I don't know what bad word you said. I only heard you say shit." She had the sweetest little baby voice...

"That's the bad word."

"Shit is a bad word?"

"Yes. Please stop saying it. I'm very sorry I said it." It was starting to sound REALLY ugly by now.

"But I don't even know why shit is a bad word. Shit doesn't SOUND bad. Why is shit bad, anyway?"

She's said it five times by now, if you haven't been keeping the tally.

By this point my husband has removed himself to the next room and is doing that silent laughing thing in my direct line of vision. You know it. It's the laughing you do when you know it's completely inappropriate to laugh but you couldn't stop yourself if you tried and the harder you try to stop the worse it gets. His face was red. I'm pretty sure he was producing tears. His whole body was shaking. He wasn't gonna be any help.

Well, shit. How am I gonna get out of this one?

But get out of it I did.

Being the (ultra-classy) super-genius that I am, though, I didn't learn from my mistake. A month or two later the eldest is in kindergarten. The youngest is in pre-school, but this was one of her days off. She was playing downstairs. I was folding laundry upstairs with the door shut. There was a floor and a door between us. I took a phone call that frustrated me. Upon hanging up, I quietly muttered, "stupid, fucking stupid."

Immediately I hear, "Awwwwwwwwwww!!!!! Mommy said a baaaaaaaad word!!!!!!!"

Oh, shit.

The little pitcher had made her way upstairs while I was on the phone, big ears and all.

You know the drill. Down on my knees. Eye level. Hands on shoulders.

"I sure did, and I'm not very proud of myself. I'm sorry I said that and I'm sorry you heard it. Will you forgive me?"

She maintained eye contact and said, very sincerely, "I do forgive you, Mommy. But you know you should never say stupid."

Back to the Future

Wildwood, New Jersey is a beach town populated by Victorian houses in pastel hues, an old fashioned boardwalk with several entertainment piers, and motels with names like: Oceanic, Sea and Shell, Blue Palm and Aquarius; many with futuristic logos from the past. They are neither fancy nor elegant, but they are undeniably special. These are the sort of unique places that you just know families return to year after year; possibly generation after generation.

Our motel, the Isle of Palms, had its name displayed in a huge casually elegant font in colors reminiscent of sand at sunrise on the shower curtain. The whole thing smacked of stepping back in time. I kept expecting Lucy and Ethel to step out of the next room in their bathing costumes. Yeah. This place inspired me to say things like "bathing costumes".


It's the same feeling I get when I pass a bar - no - a lounge - with a big neon martini glass on its sign and retro graphics. I always feel like a cocktail there would have an air of sophistication that knockin' a couple back at my local watering hole could never attain. I'm equally certain that that would not be so, so I never go into those bars. I don't want to shatter the illusion. Believing a place like that could still exist makes me happy.


Being at the beach makes me happy.

Being with my dear friend (since Jr. High, thank you very much) makes me very happy indeed.

Me and Ellin on the boardwalk. Honest to God, I didn't notice how similar our ensembles were that day until I posted this picture. Good Lord. I suppose it's true what they say: Great minds think alike. Our minds have been achieving greatness together for well over 30 years. Maybe that explains it.

Cinco de Mayo

Hola! Hoy es Cinco de Mayo. No es una dia muy importante por los Mexicanos, pero es una dia mucho importante por los Norteamericanos a beber la tequila. Y la cerveza. Pero mas importante? La tequila.

Me gusto mucho la tequila.

Ok, here's the thing: don't jump all over me for my ridiculous butchering of the Spanish language. It is, as they say, limited by disuse. There's a very good reason my use has been limited. Like to hear about it? I thought you might.

All those many years ago when I lived in Texas I had a job which required me to communicate on a daily basis with Spanish speaking Mexicans. I dealt with one gentleman in particular very regularly. He always communicated with very broken and labored English.

One day I thought to myself (I thought), "I speak Spanish very well! Why am I making him struggle with his English when we could be communicating so easily in Spanish?" I thought this, you see, because I had taken four years of high school Spanish and three years of college Spanish. I'd always gotten pretty easy 'A's' and my teachers had always complimented me on both my speaking and writing . Yepperdee, I was one confident communicator.

Folks, if I could remember what I said to him that day, I would tell you, but I can't. It was a long time ago, for one thing, and for another, what happened next is such a vivid memory that it easily supercedes whatever inconsequential words I uttered to inspire it.

What happened, after I made an earnest effort to speak to him in his native tongue was: he laughed. He didn't just laughed. He LAUGHED!!! Not lol or LOL, but ROTFLMAO!!!!! He doubled over, holding his belly with both hands. He wiped away a tear and laughed some more.

I stood there, confused, trying to figure out what I'd said or done that was so funny. "What? Que? What?" His only response was more laughter. When he came up for air, I asked, in English, "What is so funny?"

"What you say!"

"What I said was funny?"

"Si" he answered, barely managing to stifle another giggle fit.

"What did I say that was so funny? I want to know so that I can correct it."

He paused for a moment and clearly considered his answer. "I think it was no so much what you say. It was how you say. Here, people say Spanish bad with Texas accent. This I hear. I never hear no one say Spanish bad with Yankee accent before. You sound so funny!" He let out one more giggle, but this one was more controlled. "Sorry for laughing." he added. I watched him mocking my pronunciation and shaking his head as he walked away.

That, my friends, was the very last time I attemped to speak Spanish. My confidence was shot all to hell. So was my desire to make things easier for him. He wants to laugh? He can struggle with his damn English. You won't catch me making an effort again.

Years later, when I was teaching ESOL, I retold this story many times.

I learned a lesson that day. Respect the effort. If he had gently corrected my word choice or my pronunciation - even if he'd chuckled a little when he did it - I would have learned and possibly even improved. We could have learned together. As it was? I gave up. I didn't need to be laughed at and I'd be damned if I was going to set myself up for that again.

We both lost out that day.

So I guess I'm just saying, appreciate the effort.

Comprende?

Y tambien? Una tequila mas, por favor.

Technology Bites

Let me start by saying that I am hardly one of those people who goes through their life treating their cell phone like it is another appendage - possibly one more important even than the starter kit with which we were born.

I've had one forever, of course. The first one was a big expense and a big decision. This is fitting, as it was also a big-assed phone. I kept it for only the most dire of emergencies and my friends were all cautioned to never use it to contact me with frivolities. Those minutes weren't free, you know!

I was a little in awe of it. To have the ability to call people from wherever I might be - even on the road (as long as I was in a zone covered by my plan) - bordered on the nearly unbelievable.

We're living in the future, baby! Anything can happen now!

As technology improved I more or less kept up. I upgraded my phone every couple years. I always viewed them as a nice convenience but nothing more. I was still conservative with my usage, relying on it more for outgoing calls, with incoming calls being rare enough to make me jump when they came through.

I didn't know my number and had to look it up when anyone asked. I've watched my daughter become completely attached to hers. I watched my husband develop a love/hate relationship with his. I maintained an air of detachment about mine.

The only exception was when I traveled without my family. I became a texting machine on par with my thirteen year old daughter when I traveled. Well, maybe that's overstating it a bit. But I text a LOT on vacation.

My most recent phone has internet as well, and I have found myself slightly more reliant upon that. I don't have it mastered. My skills with the stylus and the keyboard are not such that I can do everything my phone is capable of. I update FaceBook and Twitter. I read email (though I have a hard time responding to it). The sound of a message coming through no longer takes me by surprise. But it still makes me jump! I want to know what's going on!

Many of you know that I went out of town for a long weekend this past weekend. On the second day of my vacation, my phone died. Just totally flat-lined. It was fully charged, but everything went black. The panic I felt over this was unnerving. It pulled my plug. I was disconnected. I was suddenly and unexpectedly disconnected from EVERYthing. I was angry, I was upset, but I was also somehow - scared. The world was going on without me and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Things could happen and I wouldn't know!

I became ultra-aware of everyone else's cell phones. I passed a guy with one of those notepads and I nearly hyperventilated. I was in serious communication withdrawal.

I picked my phone up every hour or two to see if it had miraculously returned to me. Maybe the whole thing had just been a bad dream. Once, it actually sparked up. The joy and hope I experienced in that brief flash of artificial light! But alas, it was extinguished before I could even check messages.

I called the hubs from my friends phone and he said, when in doubt, reboot. Nothing. He called her phone the next morning and told me to take the battery out and pop it back in. I did so. The phone? She was revived. I bet you were getting a little nervous there!!! I know I was!!!

When I arrived home, just a couple hours ago, the first thing I did was rush to my laptop and put my head on its cool, sweet keys. I love you. I'm sorry I left you behind. Let's never part again. (Don't be too concerned, my family was still at school/work - if they were here I PROBABLY would have greeted them first...)

It took no small amount of time to catch up on my blog reading and I apologize if my comments were a little on the lazy side.

It was good to be away, and it's good to be back!

Isn't it Lovely?

As award season continues, I am pleased and proud to accept the One Lovely Blog award from the - well - lovely and talented Pam at Pam's Perspective. Thanks, Pam!!! I think you're pretty lovely, too!

Isn't it pretty? Pam asked me to link you up with a ton of new links, but I'm playing kind of fast and furious with the rules. I'm just gonna give you one, but I'm gonna make it count. I'd like you all to take a moment and visit with Melissa at:

Operation NICE

I've been following this blog since its inception and I think Melissa is da bomb. She reminds us of how simple it can be to make a difference. She shares inspirational stories, offers great links, and gives regular assignments to help us all to be just a little bit nicer. She also frequently offers free downloads to help you along this path. She manages to do all of this without ever ever ever coming off as preachy or judgmental.

So do me a favor. Treat yourself to a few moments there. You won't be sorry. It is indeed, One Lovely Blog.

You Look Great! (For Your Age)

I have never lied about my age. I've discussed that here, I think. I don't color my hair. I'm not thrilled about the gravitational effects of aging, but aside from a good support garment, I don't do anything to stop or reverse them. While I'm considerably less than thrilled with my weight, I am also not willing to kill myself trying to become what society thinks I should be.

I've talked about all of this before.

But lately, I've been getting a lot of compliments AFTER I tell someone how old I am.

Wow, you look great.

Now these are not people who think I look great in a general sense. You know when someone thinks you look great, and I feel pretty confident telling you that, before the revelation of my age, none of these people were looking at me that way. But once they heard that number, they gave me a quick and relatively inoffensive once-over then proclaimed, "Wow, you look great."

So I'm thinking of starting to lie. Maybe I'll start saying I'm OLDER than I actually am. What do you think? If I look great for 46, I probably look AMAZING for 55. 74? Forget about it.

The other night a young man carded me - and looked very carefully at my license. It was one of those events where everyone was carded and, when you're old, it's just sort of a formality. But this kid was checking. I mean, I'm not stupid. He wasn't checking to see if I was under 21. Sheesh. But he WAS studying my license. When he finally gave my card back he told me that he couldn't believe I was born when I was. He didn't have a damn thing in the world to gain by flattering me.

Wow, you look great.

A few days back? I was feeling old. My neck was sore, my knees were sore, there were bags under my eyes, I was tired, and I felt old. Do you want to know what I did? I took myself out for a late breakfast at a place I know is frequented by people older than I. I felt so darn young after breakfast that I practically bounced out of the restaurant.

Wow, I felt great.

It's all relative, my friends.