Home is Where the Heart is...but Where is That Again?
Sorry for the delays but I guess it's never too late to say it: Merry X-mas and all that good stuff. If you celebrated, I hope you went hard on the roasties and the red. If you're working over the festive period, I salute you with a leftover roast parsnip. Someone has to keep the country running!
It's that awkward time of year between the 25th and New Years' when no one really knows what's going on. You barely know your own name, never mind the day of the week. We're all just kind of fumbling around and mooching and relaxing in the pure bliss of standstill. Time just seems to grind to a halt those few days. Especially round these parts.
In case you didn't know, Westport is a tiny lil town on the west coast of Ireland. Heard of it? Probably not. Heard of Mayo? The county that has that holy pilgrimage and is supposedly cursed against winning old Sammy each year? Hmmm...maybe so.
My parents are from round here and they always claim that it's "home." They often remark that we may as well think of it as "home" too and, to be honest, I see their point. As children, we were sent back on the ferry most Christmases and for a month every summer to the piss-pouring rain, soilage and sandy beaches. We'd chase cows around fields and play pool in the pub and throw ourselves into the waves in the middle of December with mum screaming that we'd "catch our deaths" - not before we'd nearly fall off Croagh Padraic (true story). All without wifi and a working television. I know - alternative universe, right? No wonder I'm a big reader.
Given all the time we've spent here and the amount of relatives that still live in and around Mayo, I think it's fair to say that this wee corner of the world is another piece of my "home" too.
I've been thinking about the idea of "home" a lot lately. I don't know why. My mum will read this and claim that I miss her too much and should move back to Leigh effective immediately (she's probably got my suitcase out ready to go by the end of this sentence)! But it's not like I miss her. Which sounds awful. Because I do - obviously. I love my parents and my childhood home and where I grew up (although you might be one of the roughest areas in the North West, the largest European town without a train station, and a newly-turned-blue constituency *still a bit bitter*). I miss them a lot. But not in a sad way, if that makes any sense.
I miss them in the sense I wish they could be experiencing my every day alongside me. I guess it's their presence I miss more than anything. In that sense, I think "home" can be found in several things, in many ways. Home obviously means many different things to different people. It can be a security thing; a place you can build from. It can be a unity thing; amongst the people in which you find comfort. It can be where all your memories are. I mean, Oxford Dictionary defines home as "where something flourishes, is typically found or from where it originates." Covering all the bases there, OD; I see you!
I think of "home" and I automatically think of the house I grew up in, mainly because it's the easiest and most simple of associations. But, then again, a house is just a house. It's a bunch of bricks, corners and a roof. It's more what's going on inside that interests me. Like, my childhood house is a shrine to my ideas of home. Mainly because there are still four other people floating around it but the echoes of their presence (and my own) can still be found. Glasses dumped on the kitchen counter, only to be scrambled for in a fit of forgetfully blind* (pun$) panic later on (Mum); letters addressed to either one of the Mr. J. Maxwells present at any time, most likely to be opened mistakenly by the wrong one; a folder or two of homework to be desperately completed in time for the morning (Lils).
If anyone was to ask me where I was from, or where I was born, I would say Leigh (actually, I'd say "near Manchester" to sound hashtag cool). If anyone was to ask me where I grew up, I would say Leigh and Birmingham. If anyone was to ask me where home was, though, I think I'd struggle a little.
If home was a jigsaw, then I'm privileged enough to say that I have several pieces that build its picture. I can say Leigh because I was born there and grew up there. I can say Peaky-Blinder-Ville, where I also spent a lot of my childhood. I can say Ireland. I even say London now, much to my parents' dismay. But living in London doesn't automatically make me a Londoner; nor does having Irish parents make me from Ireland, or Brummy parents make me a Brummy too (thank God!) I can say I'm from Leigh...but do I honestly find home there now? I'm not quite sure.
The thought of moving back there post-graduation made me feel physically sick. Having to move back into my childhood bedroom, go past my old school each day, look for work in this tiny ex-mining town with absolutely nothing going for it (especially now its blue *ok, very bitter*) made me want to curl up into a little ball and cry. A bit dramatic, maybe, but true. I know that Manchester is less than half an hour down the road, but it isn't the same, no matter what which way you look at it. After building a little life for myself far away from "home", the though of returning to Leigh was too much to bear. I'm still not entirely sure why...it just was.
I know nearly all grads go through this. And it probably would have been easier (and a ton cheaper!) to up sticks and move back in with my parents. Save up money for my masters, for travelling, whatever. But here I am, six months later, with a job that I love, with a bank account that hates me, and my own little life that I am slowly building. I have my friends. I have my flat. I get to write every day for a living. Sure, I barely make ends meet when I am supposed to be saving to go back to university and stuff, but what does that matter, when I am trying to build myself something of a "home" here?
Maybe "home" isn't necessarily about where you were born or where you grew up, then. Maybe it isn't really anything to do with where you spent your childhood. Maybe it's where you find yourself the most settled.
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| Tony's Table - stuff of Louisburgh legend. |
But the idea of "settled" is broad and generic and kind of scary to me. I would never ever want to feel like I was settling...whether that be in terms of location, in terms of career prospects, whatever. Settling makes me feel like something is less than. Comfortable, no matter how appealing, can feel a bit dangerous to me, in certain circumstances. What's the point in "settling" when you can push harder, reach higher, whatever?
I found this juxtaposition in America last year. If the airport was my home, my passport was my front door key. I was anything but settled, really, but in some places, I felt very much at home. Boston's North End? Mate, I would move there in a heartbeat. I can't really explain why. I just had this overwhelming feeling of comforting familiarity when I walked through the streets, as if I knew them like the back of my hand when I had barely spent an hour there. I felt very much a part of the city. Looking back, it felt like home...even though it most certainly wasn't. I felt very settled in a place that I wasn't trying to settle in (one day, maybe!)
I'm talking round in circles (lol what's new!) So maybe no explanation is really needed for "home." It's just where you feel the most at ease. Sometimes it's the house in which you grew up. Sometimes it's the place you currently find yourself. Maybe it's the memories you retain from that place in that country at that time (BOSTON I'LL COME BACK I SWEAR WAIT FOR ME!)
For something that appears so simple, home is actually a pretty complex psychology. It's memory. It's placement. It's people. It's time. Just because I'm not moving back to Leigh or Westport, Mum, doesn't make it any less "home." It's just a different kind of home.
PS: I don't actually hate Birmingham (that much ;) ); just an ongoing joke!
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