Failures in Existential Homecomings

I went home for Thanksgiving this year. It was wonderful. It was weird. It was interesting.

Home is a strange concept for me, given that I don't really have one. Not in a tragic way, of course, but in a way that makes 'the Holidays' somewhat emotionally complicated. Especially as I get older and messier. And wiser. (Somewhat wiser.)

Amherst is one home, certainly, It's where I grew up, the place that exists in a dozen dimensions stacked on each other, perspectives of my world at 8, 12, 16, 20, 25, 30...But I've left, and my brother's left, and our parents left. So it's still home, in a way, still the place I started, but all my time there is woven through with this faint, constant anxiety. It's a whimpering, underlying loneliness, a mild love panic - whatever it means, it's a specific kind of emptiness that I don't feel anywhere else: This was home. But I have to leave soon. This is not my base anymore.

Every place has had it's moments. In New Orleans, I felt like a kindred with an entire city, its whole spirit, like everything strange and terrible that I was was true, and real, but also beautiful and fascinating, and that all that twisted chaos was probably just fine.

Then Boston, the strange little second adolescence I threw myself into because I apparently never tire of late nights and melodrama, excessive introspection and cheap wine, skating along the poverty line between champagne brunches. And I love it there still, I have family by blood, and families we made up just with our hearts, and being back there is the best mirror, of how much has changed and how much is the same and how much we can love each other, and how much of that is forever. But it's not home anymore, either. There's no place that is just mine, all the way through.

My parents live in Florida, my brother lives in Colorado. When I'm with them, I'm home, because that's my team, but underneath all the best parts is the same low-level hum that buzzes through the base of my brain when I'm in Amherst: This was home. But I have to leave soon. There's nothing permanent for me here.

I used to hate the expression 'Home Is Where the Heart Is', because fuck you, my heart is everywhere.

Baylor and I got back late last night, to an empty apartment that smelled like roses and sandalwood from the incense burning when Kyle picked us up on Wednesday. I spent half an hour in the shower steaming the car-ride stiffness out of my muscles and rubbing my sides where they were still sore from the night before, when F and I stayed up belly-laughing over a decade's worth of memories, photos and videos capturing hundreds of stupid, tiny, wonderful moments, dozens we'd forgotten about, all of them we were so happy to have remembered. And it occurred to me that was home, too, inside those images were my parents, and my brother, my friends, place we've been, things we've seen, the people we were, a whole record that doesn't register any less deeply simply because it's not a physical place.

Earlier that day, I sat in the basement of Bartlett Hall with two of my favorite people on the planet, people I didn't get to meet until well into my Boston days. One of them is at UMass now, teaching classes in the building where I spent days of my undergraduate life, books spread out across beat up wooden desks tucked into the second floor landing, baking in the greenhouse heat cooked up by window panes and winter sunlight. I hadn't been inside in the better part of a decade, but here I was again, for the simple reason that two of my worlds happened to bump into each other on the same day. There was a time when that would have upset me greatly, a time when I favored strict compartmentalization to all other life-love organizational systems, but I'm not really like that anymore. Now I like it when my edges blur.

This ended differently than I intended. This morning, I thought I was going to write about how I sort of understand some things that terrify me - commitment, responsibility, regularity, maturity - much better when I think about them in the context of Home. Someplace to go back to. Some place that is all yours. But it was going to be something of a backhanded compliment, and I don't want to do that now. Now I just want to say that I think maybe we spend our whole lives coming home, and that's not nearly as depressing as it sounds. It gives us something to aspire to.

When I got out of the shower last night, I put on an old Temptation's album I stole from my brother and emailed my parents to let them know we got back safely, albeit without my phone charger (hence the email). Baylor was passed out beside me, purring in that way unique to Staffies, exhausted in that way unique to small children and animals after long days of travelling. When I got into bed, that humming was still there, the one that never lets me forget that this good thing will end, too. They all will! But maybe that's not the best way to think about it.

That hum tells us that things will pass, yes. But it's sure there a lot. So maybe it's not there to bum me out. Maybe it's there to keep my eyes open. Like an appreciation alert. Like there are too many good things wherever I go, and I'm never going to get to them all. And that's probably just fine.

Everyone Is An Asshole

So everyone's been sort of a jerk lately. Not you, reading this, of course. You've been terrific, I'm sure. You're probably one of my friends, and my friends are wonderful. People have just not been super wonderful to them lately. It seems like hearts are breaking all around me. And I'm sensitive to that shit now.

It's always the surprise that's the worst part. The rug pulled out from under you, that patch of black ice on the sidewalk. The sneakiest kind of disappointment: I just didn't expect this. Everything seemed so great. They seemed so great! That insidious little betrayal: I trusted you. I let you in. I told my friends about you. And like I said, I know all these wonderful people, so they're mad, of course, but they also turn the anger in: How could I not have known? How could I let myself get tricked again? Everything seemed so great. 

That is not just about love. It happens with friends, it happens at work. It happens everywhere. The thing that made you the happiest takes down its own curtain and leaves you with nothing. Or worse, more common: it takes part of you with it. And it seems impossible, that you could have been so wrong, you're sharper than that, you're smarter than that. But it's still ever-present, that threat: you're in danger of being let down every time you trust something, from the very moment you let it in. And it happens for one, simple, universal reason:

Everyone is an asshole. Sometimes.

It's true. And it's the only comfort I've been able to give anyone recently, when the people and things that they've trusted have let them down, again, for unbelievable, stupid, tiny, mind-blowingly painful reasons: everyone is an asshole, sometimes. Even the best people who've ever lived, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., your angelic little Nana: they were all assholes, sometimes. Even the person who has shown you the greatest kindness in your life, whom you are forever grateful for and to: they're an asshole, too. Or they were. Sometimes.

We're humans. We make a mess of absolutely everything we do. Even the most revered and accoladed among us, even the kindest and the most charitable. We feel so deeply. We want so many things. We act impulsively, jumping first and apologizing later. We cover things up. We are imperfect, so we miss a spot. We are tortured, so we let ourselves get caught. We hurt each other and run away. We stay close enough to see just how bad it really was. Sometimes we do this because we know we'll be forgiven. Sometimes that's the meanest part of all.

Of course I'm guilty, too. Sometimes I think I'm the guiltiest. I've been selfish. I've been petty. I've been cruel. I've lied, I've cheated, I've stolen. I've taken more than I needed. I've been reckless, I've been short-tempered. I've expected other people to clean up my messes. I've been manipulative, I've been immature. I've been careless with other people's hearts. I've been destructive with my own. I am an asshole. Sometimes.

And you, wonderful person, darling friend who has undoubtedly acted beautifully and selflessly, who has been there for someone when no one else was, who has helped loved ones through tragedies large and small - you are an asshole, too. Sometimes.

But we're also great. More than sometimes. That goes for me and it goes for you, too. Kind and caring and sympathetic, helpful when you don't have to be, accepting when you'd like to disagree, patient when you're frustrated, open when it would be so much easier to close. True, it's because of these things, these beautiful capabilities, that we make ourselves vulnerable to the assholes, potential victims to the concealed, predatory worst parts of everyone. And because of that - because you know that anyone, at any time, can kick a hole through your heart - when you know that, and choose to extend your hand anyway, it lifts us all up, a little. Makes us better than we are. Makes all the messy, gory, excruciating, tedious, lovely, hideous business of being a human worth it, if just for a flash, before you descend back down into your baser elements. Don't let that get you down. Don't let any of it get you down. You're beautiful right now. We all have our moments. Just remember:

Everyone is an asshole. Sometimes.

A Shot and a Beer, Delores

It probably goes without saying: I'm delighted by the outcome of the election. Obama is my jam, and I want to have a beer with Biden so much, I own a cozy with a picture of his face on it. There are more lady senators than ever, and check it: burgeoning religious diversity! A Buddhist lady! A Hindu lady! (Which made me think, if I were ever to take office - it's a hypothetical, roll with me - would they allow me to swear in on The Ballad of the Sad Cafe? Carson McCullers is as close as I get to religion.) We're four states closer to universalizing the right to marry whoever the hell you're crazy enough to want to do that with. And I have yet another reason to visit the baby brother in Boulder. America 2012: now with more weed!

But, hey, stoner! Pay attention.We're not done yet. This is just another good step. There's still so much to fix. Like - there is still a ton of racist garbage going on. Case in point: The Washington Redskins.

One cool thing about DC is that most of  the sports teams are in different divisions than Boston teams, so I can be a fan without betraying loyalties. But I realized this fall: I cannot root for the Redskins. Because...what...how...this the name of the capital city's football team? Guys, that word is a fucking slur. It's disgusting. It is not celebratory. It is a hateful, hateful thing. Because it's a tradition, because everyone's used to it: these are not reasons to continue the practice in perpetuity. Do you really need examples of 'traditional' practices where, in hindsight, it's just 'Holy shit, what the hell was WRONG with everyone?' I brought this up with Kyle the other day, and he was like 'Okay, but is the Cleveland Indians mascot not more racist than Washington's team name?' And he has a point, that bullshit is also terrible, but we don't need to involve a scale of racism. It is all vile. Like, HOW IS ANYONE OKAY WITH ANY OF THIS?

Why isn't everyone talking about this all the time? Every game? Why haven't the Commissioners of ALL THE SPORTS just gotten together for lunch one day and been like 'Guys, none of this is alright. Let's fix it right now. Let's just split some calamari and - what, okay you want the mussels? Bud, you don't like mussels? Of course you don't. Hmm. Beef carpaccio? What? No. We aren't getting the spinach-artichoke dip. This isn't TGIFridays. Okay FINE, get it, just can we please talk about changing all these abhorrent team names and mascots? Fans would be so into this! It'd be like the time M&M's had people vote on the new color! Remember? Okay, sure some people miss tan, but that's not a super valid comparison, because tan M&Ms weren't COMPLETELY FUCKING RACIST. I mean, we changed the Bullets. To the Wizards, I know, entirely stupid name, we'll need to brand-manage better this time, but really. DC didn't want to be the Bullets anymore because of the negative associations with violence and being the murder capitol and all. What about the negative associations of, oh, I don't know, murdering millions of people with smallpox blankets and forcing them out of their homes just because some white people wanted to raise their stupid cows there? That's not negative enough? I'm just saying - OH MY GOD, DAVID, NOBODY WANTS THE APPETIZER SAMPLER, THAT IS ALWAYS THE WORST DEAL ON THE MENU.'

Because kids, we're better than this. You know? Just today I was bitching about how we haven't changed Columbus Day to American Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the discussion turned to getting credit for 'finding' something you stumbled across while looking for something else. Like when I 'find' an ill dive bar in a weird neighborhood after wandering around in search of a subway station. People have been drinking there for mad long. It was merely a personal discovery. Later my friend compared America, at it's best, to a great dive bar, and we were both like 'Oh shit, that is the best way to think about it.' And there's no place I'd rather be than a great dive bar. You know?

Tuesday night, I left Kyle's still nervous about what kind of country I'd wake up to on Wednesday (the Metro should totally run late on election night). I was walking down the street listening to Rihanna on my giant headphones, in an outfit that involved no pants and a lot of scarves, eating a cookie with TWO KINDS of chocolate chips, and I was like 'Dude, I love America! Romney can't win.' Then I didn't feel like eating the rest of the cookie, so I threw it in the street. Obama's America: Where the streets are paved with chocolate chip cookies! Half-eaten chocolate chip cookies, though. We've still got a lot of work to do.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go help those old white men get through their lunch meeting so I can feel okay cheering for RG III. Because he's dope. And before Goodell starts pegging waitresses with dinner rolls. He's a mess when he doesn't get his way on the first course.

I love this bar.


a) Despite the lighthearted end note, we still need to fix all the mascots, and Columbus Day. 
b) I wasn't like, naked and wrapped up in scarves or anything, it was my typical unbalanced ratio of leggings-to-layers-on-top.
c) I figured throwing the cookie in the street wasn't littering because there are animals, but now I feel bad about luring them into the street, and what if chocolate is bad for raccoons like it is for dogs? I feel bad about this now. See? LOT OF WORK TO DO.