I’ve
now been outside of the US for four months. The first three months were spent in Nazareth, and then I
went to Europe to travel and visit friends. Now I’m back in Nazareth for another three months. All of
this being away from home has made me think about what ‘home’ is. Growing up, my definition of home was
fairly stationary. I have lived in
the same big yellow house for my whole life. My parents lived there before I was born and they still live
there now. I remember the address
with the little ditty I learned when I was five years old.
At
eighteen I went away to college, and then my definition of ‘home’ got a little
confused. There was where-I-grew-up
home and where-I-live-now home.
They were pretty different.
College started out as new and very strange, but I quickly
made good friends and an even larger pool of acquaintances. I got to know people at church from
outside of my peer group and I’d run into them at the grocery store. I learned to live my life there. Where the post office and bank were,
where to go with my friends, where to study. My family and some old friends were at home, but I didn’t
quite belong there anymore. I
remember talking with a friend about three days into a month-long Christmas
break during my first year of college.
We were both ready to go back.
‘Home’ felt a little strange now.
This was how most of college felt, with school increasingly feeling like
home.
Except
that graduation came. William and
Mary isn’t home anymore, and as much as I like visiting, it never will be
again. The people that made it
home aren’t there anymore. I moved
‘home’ to North Carolina, but only to work for the summer at camp and get ready
to leave again. At first, Nazareth
was really strange. I had to
figure out where to get food and shampoo, how to heat my apartment, and find
new friends and a new church, in a different country using a different
language. It was a lot of change all at once.
I didn’t realize how much Nazareth
had become home until I was in Europe.
One of the first things I realized was that I didn’t know how to cross
the street any more. In Nazareth,
there aren’t really any cross walk signs.
You just look to make sure that people have the time, and the
inclination, to stop before you just go.
But in Europe they have the fancy green-man-means-walk signs. And people even generally follow them,
with the added risk of getting hit by a car if you don’t obey them. I got really excited when I heard
people speaking Arabic, and not just because I could eavesdrop. It was the same excitement I feel when
I hear Americans, because it’s familiar.
When I was really hungry and cranky and not inclined to try anything
new, hamburgers, pasta, falafel, and schwarma all counted as comfort food. I even had reverse culture shock from
large groups of loud American tourists.
My home in the US felt increasingly far away.
When I came back to Nazareth, the
airport was familiar and I knew where the taxi was taking me. The first day back I had no trouble
running to the grocery store. I’ve
seen lots of people I know who were happy that I was back. Someone that I apparently know yelled
and waved at me out the window of the car (I couldn’t figure out who it was).
I’ve fallen back into speaking Arabic and am more willing to explain that I
don’t speak Hebrew than I was with other languages in Europe. Yet I am still looking forward to going
home to the US to see my family and friends and eat barbeque again.
So where is my home now? What makes
a place your home? I know people
here in Nazareth, it’s where some of my stuff is, and I feel very happy and
comfortable here. My home at
William and Mary has been scattered, so little bits of that home are with my
follow TWAMPs (typical William and Mary person). Legally my home is in North
Carolina, and that’s where my family is and where I speak my native language. Given
all of these competing forces, I feel a little bit stateless. I don’t exactly belong anywhere right
now. Here, I’m still the random
white American who speaks Arabic.
At home, I’m mostly my parents’ child. That’s fine and I love them dearly, but it’s weird when most
of the people I know are my parents’ friends. I don’t belong at William and Mary anymore either. Seeing as I have applied to graduate
schools all over the US, I have no idea where I’ll be this time next year
either.
I still don’t have an answer, but
this thought process has made me focus a little more on my permanent home. I’m a Christian, which has lots of
different implications, but one thing is that I’m not only an American citizen,
but a citizen of God’s kingdom as well.
If, for whatever reason, my
American* label was no longer relevant, I’d still
be a citizen of God’s kingdom. At this point, I have no clue where life will
lead me. I could end up living
down the street from where I grew up or halfway around the world. But in the
midst of all of this confusion, I know my final destination. How I get there is
just part of the adventure.
* I do really
like the US, which I realize the more time I spend in other places. Also, the Olympics are coming up, so I’m rather patriotic right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment