Published in The Siskiyou, January 30, 2006

I keep having dreams that I can’t find my way home. In my altered state all the streets run together from the various places I’ve lived, and San Jose’s suburban street will never connect with the Washington log house in the forest.

Home. What does it mean? For some, it’s a house they’ve grown up in since childhood, and one they return to every holiday. For others it’s a set of relations who change location but always welcome them with open arms. For the less fortunate, it’s a concept which has become foreign to them against their will. For all, it is a thing always in fluctuation, either because things are changing around us or because we ourselves have changed.

I didn’t always have an answer when people asked me where home was. Now I do, and I reply in two words: Carnation, Washington. Any further questioning on the topic leads to a complicated response: “I-was-born-and-raised-in-the-bay-area-by-members-of-my-extended-family-without-having-a-nuclear-family-of-my-own-due-to-my-mom’s-remarriage-and-now-I-live-in-Washington-when-I’m-not-here-because-my-extended-family-migrated-there-7-years-ago-but-I’m-not-really-from-there-either-since-I-spent-the-years-prior-to-SOU-living-in-Portland.”

In fact, I’ve changed residences eleven times in the past eleven years. Sometimes I’ll be in Target or WalMart or Fred Meyer, and all of a sudden I can’t remember what city and state I’m in. All the branches with their identical merchandise give me a feeling of estrangement, and I have no idea where I’ll be when I walk out of those doors.

This is not a sob story. It’s a story of Americans in the 21st Century struggling to put down roots while at the same time longing to chase a freedom that always stays just out of reach. It’s a story of searching for a residence that includes friends and family and occupation, while often having to choose one over another. It’s an attempt to return to the security of a previous existence by reformulating that existence within new walls.  

Many of us have recently returned from holidays with our families. A great percentage spent those holidays in a state of mixed emotions: basking in the familiarity of home, yet realizing that home would never be what it was before. We can return to the fold, but it -- and we -- have changed. We will never again be children or teenagers who haven’t stepped out on their own. We’re adults now and we’ve seen too much. We know that the world does not end beyond our doorstep.

As we leave the nest, home becomes not just a location but a place inside of us, where little moments of complete contentment appear of their own accord. For me, home is driving through Carnation farmland with my gay boyfriend. It’s participating in my familial folk-dancing tradition here in Ashland, with strangers who are old enough to be my parents -- or even grandparents. It’s reading a memoir and feeling a sense of connection to the author, or baking ginger cookies from my great-grandmother’s recipe.

Home is not just a location but a set of random events and artifacts, some tangible, and some not. Some of us will put down roots, others will not, but I believe all of us will strive to reach that elusive “home”… and never quite find it, completely.

Copyright © 2006 Shannon Luders-Manuel