2003-02-25 12:39 a.m.
On Fromness and Home
TheBoy was at a cafe the other day, wearing a sweatshirt that says "Bklyn NY" on it. He was served by a barista wearing a Brooklyn Philharmonic t-shirt.
Barista: So are you from Bklyn NY?
TheBoy: No, I'm from Old Navy.
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Actually, TheBoy isn't really from anywhere. He was born in one city, grew up in several others across the US and his parents were from yet another city. (And their parents in turn were transplants from another part of the country.) So when he's asked he tries to come up with an answer but really, Old Navy is as good an answer as any.
On the other hand, when I'm asked where I'm from, it's the questioner, not me, who has that moment of cognitive dissonance. When people say they're "from" the Bay Area, they often mean that they've loosened or cut off their family ties completely, usually for good reason, and made San Francisco their home of choice rather than their home of birth. But my parents aren't fundamentalists, my gender matches my chromosomes, there isn't the slightest thing transgressive about my sexuality. And until you've known me for a while, I read as cheerful, unfreakish and just distressingly, blandly normal all around. Eew.
So when I say I'm "from" the Bay Area, sometimes I have to explain that I'm from from the Bay Area. I was born here. My parents didn't roll into town with the Summer of Love; they were born here too. I'm fifth-generation Californian on both sides of the family tree, and the more genealogy I do the more connections I find, but there's no point in mentioning that because I've already confused most people at the "I was born here" part. People aren't actually born here, they're thinking, and if they are they don't look nearly as wholesome as I do.
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One nice thing about being from a large metropolitan area is that I have more latitude in my home-ness. My actual hometown, about half an hour from where I now live, is home in both a good and a bad way -- I know it inside and out, and when I'm there I often run into friends of my parents' or people I knew in my childhood, but it also represents pieces of my younger self that I scarcely even recognize any more. The city I live in now is more in line with who I am now, but it's still in the Bay Area, still surrounded by the markers of home -- redwoods, fog, architecture, weather patterns, the quality of light, the smell of the bay, fresh produce, the TV and radio stations and newspapers I grew up with, the sports teams, the freeways and thousands of other odd little comforting details. It's a piece of me and I'm a piece of it. I'm enmeshed in the place in ways I can't fully understand or describe.
So what does home mean to you? Fill out my survey (or riff on this in your diary) and tell me more.