Monday, July 28, 2008

home

What is home? What is place? At the moment, I live and reside in Anchorage; we have the house, the dog and a work place, our social activities, so I consider myself a resident of Alaska. But, I get peeved when people ask me if I am Alaskan. Actually, I don't like to be pegged as any one thing. Yes and no, I respond. My background involves lots of pieces that have made me into what I am today. Friday, I am leaving for the East Coast to see family and New York. I consider that my home too because I instantly immerse myself into a world that knows me; the girlfriend since eight grade, the boardwalk with a vast horizon of the Atlantic and it's aromas, a mother, a sister and brothers, the stoop, and a neighborhood with the same neighbor who lives across the street. I grew up there.

(Well, of course, of course, everyone comes from some place! And why make such a big deal out it all! Lighten up Katherine I keep reminding myself. And on the other hand, we are all good at keeping it together on the surface level. Many times I get tired of the regular protocol banter. La, la, la.)

Soon after college I left my home state and spent twenty years in Los Angeles where I found my career ambition and a community of like minded people; I grew up as an artist on the West Coast and that too is my home. I miss being there, I get sentimental and nostalgic for places and familiar haunts.

Place and home is a natural consciousness; absorbing and learning what is around you. I would like to think of my home as planetary and a universal venture in nature. At the moment, I am here in the physical but continue to expand collectively; I open myself up to multiple possibilities, so my theory of home does not become a fixed place but a evolutionary process of time and flight into the unknown. And, I find that exciting and worth talking about!


1 comment:

bikegirl said...

Katherine - I love reading your log. It's thoughtful & thought-provoking.

I spent most of my first 30 years in Wisconsin - in my tiny hometown, then in Madison & Milwaukee. Then I ran away to Alaska where I felt the pulse of the earth telling me this should be home. And it is. Home is where life is.

When we travel, I'll refer to the tent as home. The hotel or condo is home. It's not home-home, but home for now.