Manja inspired me. If you didn’t read her post last week, well, that’s sad, but it’s not too late.
I’ve been home for three years, six months, and twenty-one days and I still thank God for that every single day. Notably every time I take the dog out. I like to stand in my back yard and marvel over the clouds or the stars or the trees or the flowers or the fireflies — you get it — and say aloud, “God it’s good to be home.” This time of year is particularly easy to be grateful, because it’s cool and pretty, but even in the dread heat of August, I still do it. In Georgia, it was never so green.
Home is decidedly green.
I could likely make a home anywhere green.
Were I ever to leave this place, which I cannot imagine, green would still be my number one criteria. Four seasons. Hard freeze, cause tulips. If tulips can’t grow there, then neither can I.
Home is where you know all the places in time frames. All the places mean something, contain a memory. The neighborhoods that were once yours, schools you attended, places your parents took you. Home is full of nostalgia.
You can learn all a place’s places and make a home and still never find home. Trust me, I know.
I spent seven years homesick, every autumn a misery.
For me, I was a stranger in a strange land.
Would I have felt such a stranger in New England or in other parts of the Midwest? Probably not. But in bleak, flat, brown landscapes, I know I don’t belong. Where palm trees grow beside stucco homes, I do not belong. In places where scheffleras grow out of doors and pansies are winter plants, I do not belong.
I have always known this. I need grass and trees, and most importantly, I need the snow and ice.
There were times I prayed I wouldn’t die in Georgia. Beggar’s Prayers. please god don’t let me die here.
Did I long to return to my roots? No. Did I need nostalgia? No.
I longed for those four seasons. Familiar landscapes that make my heart sing.
But as a parent, I had other yearnings as well. I said to Beefy once, “Imagine your kid has never built a snowman, or found a buckeye, or held a woolly worm.” Unfathomable to those of us who live in this region.
As a parent, I felt insufficient about teaching them their natural environment, because that environment was unnatural to me. I had to call my mother, the southerner…
“What the hell are these trees with the yellow pods?”
“How big do horseshoe crabs GET?”
“A dragonfly took my baby!”
We actually didn’t choose to return to Indy. Not that we don’t love it, it’s a part of us, and we do love it, but we’d planned to settle elsewhere in the region, not that the job market cared.
Now and again, a friend of mine says she can’t understand why people stay where they are. She’ll ponder over how some people never left her hometown, while she herself has lived all over the country.
I counter her by saying some people belong to places. Those people who never leave, they’re the backbones of their communities. It’s always been this way. Natives, formal and otherwise, are essential.
I don’t know that I belong here, but I know I don’t not belong here, and that’s a reason enough to count my blessings.
Have you found or made a home? What’s home for you?
joeyfullystated 
This is beautiful, Joey. Home is where your heart is, and you heart is very much in Indiana. I am happy that you are happy.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, me too 🙂
LikeLike
I’m glad you found your way home!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, me too 🙂
LikeLike
“A dragonfly took my baby!” – and – “…I know I don’t not belong here…”
Those are perfect. It’s not easy to find where you belong, but it’s always clear where you don’t belong. I did NOT belong in Georgia. I began working toward transferring out of UGA, almost as soon as I got there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks! I’ve always liked how we share that not belonging in Georgia bit. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
We can’t both be wrong 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this one, and agree on those 4 seasons. There is something so wrong about cutting down a Christmas tree in shorts and flip flops. It took us 20 years, but we made our way back to the mid-Atlantic. ☺ And about that dragonfly…I get it. Funny stuff.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ain’t it tho?
Thanks, Van — I’m glad you got back home, too 🙂
LikeLike
I can feel your smile through every word. Glad you’re home and happy 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! 🙂
LikeLike
I agree, four seasons are required for living a real life. I’ve always lived in the same state, though I’ve moved around to different counties. I like it here. And here is where my family is, so here is where I stay.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Right on. ❤ I like that you point out you've lived in other places in your area. I do think for some of us, it's not about a place-place, like city or state, more of a regional thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahh there’s no place like home, as Dorothy would say. … You have found it! For me, and probably my girls & the mister, we traveled and lived all over the world, all temporary housing. We’ve lived in this house over 20 years now though, and it still feels temporary. It’s just a house where we live, and our stuff is here. To me, home is my parent’s house where I grew up. Still in this city, too, but when they passed we had to sell the old homestead my dad built, so sad. That’s home to me, never anywhere else. We have the 4 seasons here, but I don’t like the cold or snow or ice… I like it hot, and of course the fall weather. Spring is for sandstorms and tornados, so not a favorite time of year. Never been to Georgia. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can probably skip Georgia if you’ve seen the sea and a great zoo.
It’s interesting after 20 years you still think of your house as temporary — really shows your mindset 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Home is wherever I can go to sleep without worrying about where my chair is. I dont know that thats happened yet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love this post! I’m glad you made it back to where you belong.
The other day, LM overheard Sam and I talking about moving. We aren’t, but I like to talk about it, because I want less heat and humidity and all that. “Mommy, I LOVE our house,” LM told me. “I NEVER wanna move. Plus, we have the perfect hill for sledding when it snows!” Wtf? We laughed so hard. Sam asked him when he had ever used that sledding hill, but he couldn’t think of a time. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks and OH LOL! Sledding hills don’t get much use down there, eh? But you never know, you could have the snow of the century and that hill could come in handy! Imagine all those kids grown up, talkin about the time it snowed a foot and they sled at your house!
My little ones didn’t adapt to moving at all, because home is quite obviously what they call home and new homes are not home. It’s taken a long time for them to adjust.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahh, if only!
Poor kids, I know it’s gotta be tough.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love this post. Really made me reflect.
I grew up and went to college on the West Coast, lived in Illinois and Kentucky for years and have been in New England for seven years.
I’ve loved the adventure of it all. And I’ve made this place home. But time I get off the plane in the states of Washington or Oregon, I know that’s where my heart will always be. Still my comfort zone after all these years of being away. Hope I get back there like you did.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope you get back there, too, Maisy. It does a heart good to be where you feel you belong.
Thank you for sharing 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m curious to learn how you got from there to here, I thought I merely complained over my compatriots, whereas you found such gratitude in the snow. I’m grateful when the snow melts somewhere else – I can always visit and throw snowballs to the dog there… But in any case I wish to thank you for finding inspiration and for telling people to read me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well I didn’t say I wanted to write a version of your post, I said you inspired me 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
And that’s what’s important, I’m glad. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
This was such a beautiful post, Joey. I agree with you that there are certain aspects of a place that make the house a home – it is your nook of familiarity and warmth. Last five years I have been adjusting with make-shift “homes”. Still waiting to find out what is my “home”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mmm, enjoy your exploration 🙂 And thanks!
LikeLike
A dragonfly took my baby. Hysterical!!!
I’ve lived on both sides of the MD Line, and while the heat hear is abominable, I still don’t think I could do northern winters again. That being said, I have been feeling so much lighter since the heat broke a bit down here. Fall is finally – somewhat – in the air!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really don’t think I could ever cross that Mason-Dixon line to make a home again. I can’t imagine. But it’s good you’re pleased with the southern winters, and even better it’s cooling off for you there 🙂
I love your use of lighter in the comment. I understand that completely.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a lovely post. Sentimental and poignant. I am so glad you are happy in Indiana. I am especially glad you enjoy snow; because a bunch is headed our way in a few months. While I enjoy the seasons I would have been content to stay in any number of places I have lived. Most of which were desert. I guess part of me feels as though home is where I am. The part that got me back to Indiana says it isn’t truly home unless I can see my kids without hopping on a plane. In either event here we are and I am glad to have met you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. I am glad we’re both here, too 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely post, Joey. I’m happy you are home. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me too, thanks 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lotta soul here. Glad you found your way home.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me too, thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Home” isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you say so 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting, we now call Georgia home. I prefer the winters to Chicago’s.
My mother-in-law lived in the same place her entire life. They did a feature story on her in the Chicago Tribune in 2000 as having been on the same census roll since 1920.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s really neat! I hope she makes it to 2020 🙂 — and if she does, you must link us!
I prefer Chicago’s winters to all of southeastern Georgia’s other seasons LOL 😛
LikeLike
I’m afraid her last census was 2000; she died later that year. Today was her anniversary, in fact. That was a bad year, with both our moms dying.
Atlanta is a little more temperate than where you were, but sometimes I miss the 40 mph in your face winds and the dirty snow and slush and overcast skies of the typical Chicago winter.
LikeLike
Oh I’m sorry.
Yes, dirty snow is the blah, but I did miss the cold and gray 🙂
LikeLike
Home is the starting place of love, hope and dreams
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s lovely. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve never lived anywhere but in Kentucky and Indiana. Like you, I think I would need green. I think it would take me a while to miss summers so humid you need scuba gear to go outside and even longer to miss ice storms that break trees, and I would NEVER miss tornadoes. No, I prefer my nostalgia firmly in the past. I get a charge out of revisiting old haunts, but old haunts tend to be … haunted. Home is where I’m happy, which is where my people are. 🙂 Glad you got back to your place, Joey! ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aw, mmhm, thanks 🙂
LikeLike
Splendidly stated.
It has particular resonance for me right now because I just moved back to the Pacific Northwest,(in particular the northern Puget Sound region) my home after being away for most of a decade. This last week (and into next week), I am trying to locate a place to rent (fixed income, so not much money but i don’t have to consider the job market), so I have driving all over the region looking for a place that I connect with and fits my budget, among other considerations. It has been interesting to see how small changes between two small towns close one to one another can have opposite effect on me. “I could see myself living here.” “There’s no way I’d live here.”
When I lived for a short period of time in the SF Bay area, the weather drove me nuts. I was born in San Diego and lived there until I was in the 5th grade, and even then blue skies all the time bored me. I couldn’t wait to get back to Seattle and the gray skies, the changing seasons.
Not too long ago I spent nearly eight years in Muncie, IN, I was more at home there than in California, but it still wasn’t home. I do miss the lightning storms (except for when the power went out).
Although in general people are people the same over, one of the key things that struck me between communities in Indiana (at least the Muncie side of the state) and in Washington (well, western Washington and down into Portland, OR) is so many of the people in Indiana were born and raised there, while around here everyone seems to be from someone else. Too many times in Muncie, I was in a business meeting and some 50-something CEO would point to someone else and say, “His brother and I used to get into so much trouble back in high school…” And while they would all diss (self-depricating) the town (“Muncie isn’t the end of the world…but you can see from here.”), they wouldn’t never think of leaving. I worked in the non-profit sector and I would say it was these people who were the backbone of the community. They donated their time, money and energy to helping their neighbors. It does take a village and it’s hard to maintain that village if everyone is bolting off to other lands.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Such a wonderful, thoughtful commentary. That joke about Muncie doesn’t get old, huh?
I don’t like those always blue skies either. I need some depth.
I’m glad you’re back ‘home’and I hope you find some pleasant digs 🙂 Thanks again for the fine comment!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Have I got a deal for you – days of raking leaves and more snow to shovel than you can imagine. 🙂 I know one reason people stay where they are and that is because cross country moves done on your own and at your own expense are hefty and tough. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
The 800 mile trip from Georgia to here was on the US Army’s dime, but I can still say it was probably the most chaotic week of my life. All the details and the driving and the pets…Oh yeah, not wanna move again EVER!
LikeLike
This made me smile, love it…If tulips can’t grow there, then neither can I.
I totally understand. I’ve had to travel quite a bit this past month and every time I land in Portland and see the beautiful greenery and trees, I know this is where I belong. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s good 🙂 I’m glad you enjoyed my tulip phrase, I use quite a bit, cause TULIPS ARE THE BEST!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Georgia is home for me; I feared I’d never have reason to return.. afterall over 30 years passed before I returned. Never before did I realize how wonderful of a place it truly is. Funny thing is our Spirit always leads us to where our home is here on earth and the the universe obliges. I’ve been aroiund the world and back, still I choose home, GEORGIA ….Truth of the matter is, God made places that we all can appreciate. One place does not always fit all. I totally enjoyed your post!
LikeLike
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment 🙂 Like you, I believe there is a place for everyone and I’m sure glad you found yours!
LikeLike
Glad to hear you are so comfy in your surroundings. I find I’ve come full circle – born in NH, will die in NH (unless I’m on a fabulous trip and drop over). 🙂 I spent my summers with my grandparents on their small dairy farm and find myself on a small farm now. It’s kind of comforting to know I’ll go out the way I came. You’d like New England because you’d get plenty of snow. 🙂
LikeLike