Time and Place Utility

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about presence. Being present in the given moment versus escapism, day dreaming, etc. – because I’ve been trying to be more aware of which of the two I’m engaged in at given points in the day or week.

And when I say escapism, I don’t just mean thinking of a nice beach and a coconut with a straw close at hand, to me escapism can also be remembrance of the past and submerging oneself in memory.

I’m not going to tell you always live in the present moment, because frankly that would be very hypocritical of me. But I do think it’s important to realize the rate at which we frame our lives based on the past, present and future.

Lately, I’ve been recalling Bangkok with a tinge of nostalgia. This is really not news, nor particularly surprising. But as I wait for news of the current protests and check for updates from friends to see they are safe – it is clearer than ever my slice of time in that city came to an end. I am not present there, even when my mind wanders that direction.

I’ve been reading a history book on the United States. Yet again, my time and place are quite off from my actual geographic position in China. But it has gotten me thinking, about a Welsh word, actually – hiraeth. One possible definition of this word without English translation: “a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.”
How could I feel a nostalgia for a United States before my birth? How could I feel nostalgia for a country as it no longer is? As maybe, it only was in my mind and my upbringing, and not in fact? But I certainly cannot be alone. Even the offhanded “well back in my day…” it reeks of the concept.

This is a concept I’ve felt since before leaving the United States. This is, in some sense, something I think everyone has felt in differing degrees – whether or not they acknowledge it as such, or simply frame it in the more mundane terms of phrases such as “life goes on,” “that’s just how it is,” and so forth.

I think we don’t take the proper time to acknowledge our transitions; rather, we ignore them, we memorialize them, we deny they have happened and pretend we can spirit from one place to another unchanged – our same selves in a new context, our ‘good old selves’ when circumstance has frayed our edges, forgetting that our context begins to define ourselves. And at some point we look around, and our physical context has stopped matching our mental picture – and we start to wonder where, exactly, does this character that I am, on this story journey I have set in motion, fit in to it all any way? And isn’t that still up to me? So where exactly am I going? I ran out of map some time ago. I’m just making it up now – so what do I draw on the map next?

I don’t mean for this post to be melancholy, I mean for it to be reflective. Respectful even, in remembering the past – but that felt more important than the day to day observations at the moment.

So I will leave you with a story I was told many times growing up, and a memory I like to take the time to cherish when I get lost:

My father had just been granted permission to drive from his hometown to his University. He stormed out the door with directions to head south down a local high way. He promptly bombarded back into the house, and proclaimed, “Which way’s south?” A tale used to justify directional challenge of other relatives for years since.

I have no idea which way south is, or if that’s even the direction I want to be going. But I’m still going.

A Sense of Place

What is home, exactly?
For 18 years, the city of Indianapolis was home.
For 5 years, West Lafayette was home.
And right now Bangkok is home.

But what really makes any place home?
People keep asking me “will I be excited to come home?”
And I don’t know how to answer that question honestly without offending people.
The answer is supposed to be “yes! I can’t wait to come home!”
But that’s not how I feel.

What exactly do you mean by come home?
Bangkok is home now.
It may not be a permanent home, but it’s more home than any place in Indiana.

How much of a connection do you have to have with a place to call it home?
Or at least a place you care about deeply?

I’ve only spent 10 days in China. But it made enough of an impact on me to care about what’s happening in the city of my hosts. I care about the people I encountered.

I lived in Firenze for one month. And it felt more like home than any place had for the previous three years.

I’ve lived in Bangkok for 9 months. And I feel like I live in limbo. But as soon as a taxi or motosai turns down my home soi, I know I’m home free. I get to put down my backpack, turn on the aircon and sit in my own space.

I spent 3 nights on the island of Koh Chang. But the sense of peace on that pier staring up at the stars felt like home, for a little while.

Some people say home is where the heart is. Or where your family is, or pumpkin pie or Thanksgiving or the State Fair or whatever else conjures up images of comfort.

It really struck me how shaken I was by the tragedy at the Indiana State Fair and by the protests in Dalian, China this weekend. These events are so much smaller than the show-stopping headlines 2011 has brought us. But these smaller events are in places that have provided a sense of home to me at some time, however briefly. It’s harder to remain detached from it.

Home is a sense of safety and peace.
A space, however small, that is your own for a period of time.

The places that have been home are always a part of who you are.
Some people have one home their entire lives.
But not me.
I don’t know where home is.
I don’t know if home needs a location.

Unlike some of the more adventurous nomads out there, I don’t seek to be location independent. I don’t seek to rid myself of all material possession except one backpack, though I strive to accumulate less.
I’d still like a true home base somewhere, someday.

But I’m a rolling stone.
Home is where I lay my head at night.