Roughly Three Homes

Musing on what home means to me

There are roughly three homes. There is, first, the home of the childhood sweetheart, one from our formative years. Whether it was filled with fuzzy memories or it broke our heart, it is defining and ever shapes our worldview. Second, there is the home of the first love — where we’ve adulted and become ourselves for the first time. Third, there is the home of that chosen love at first sight. It does not take long to know that this is it; it’s the energetic, the magnetic, the willingness to make one home.

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Am I homeless? What is home, and what isn’t?

I went to a Tea Talk recently hosted by the local Tea Stand in Brooklyn (that offers free tea for all). The discussion topic was “home”, where we each shared what home means to each of us. This post was inspired by that conversation.

Merry Christmas Eve from California. And I hope that in this moment, you feel at home wherever you are.

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I read somewhere that the place where we spent most of our lives before turning twenty is home. After that, no matter how long we will live or how many places we will travel to, the hometown will not change.

I lived in Beijing for the first ten years of my life, the next eight in the SF Bay Area, six in LA, then back to the Bay plus nomading around, and NYC as of four years ago.

For me, that’s Beijing. The culture of this city shaped my worldview. Bits and pieces of Beijingness in me come out: when I give direction via north and south coordinates, when I wholeheartedly believe Peking duck is the best dish in the world, and when I can still sing the communism spirit anthem (only recently when I listened to those lyrics that came out of my mouth did I realize what I’ve been singing). When I see uncles and aunties 大爷大婶们 sitting by the streets playing Go or dancing yang ge, yelling at each other with that “er” accent (a tongue curl at the end of the words), the corners of my mouth turn upward. When I see them, I see my people.

Me wearing a 绿领巾 (green scarf/neckerchief). A red scarf symbolizes Young Pioneers of the Communist youth, and green was that budding precursor worn before we were granted the red.

Every time I land at the Beijing airport, it smells like Beijing. It’s an inexplicable, visceral scent that’s been hardwired to my palette. Maybe it’s the air particles from the local flora and fauna, the seeds emitted from the willow trees or the sweat of the people.

They say we are 皇城根下长大的孩子 “children that grew up at the foot of the yellow city [Imperial Palace].” What this means is up for interpretation, but behind it is a sentiment of pride. We are close to the center (political heart), close to the happenings, close to both the heritage and the future.

The place that is close to our roots, is home.

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Sometimes we’ve left a place, but memories remain.

Los Angeles was where I adulted. College was the first time I became myself. The city of angels was where I first drove around to get to places on my own, the first time I felt comfortable cooking a meal, and that first taste of freedom and independence.

This city is piled with memories, except I don’t live there anymore. Today, when I drive past the skyline of downtown LA, I feel a sense of melancholy.

It’s like Inside Out: when a memory that’s no longer a part of the present is revisited, it is touched by the grace of Sadness, and that bright, shiny yellow memory turns dark blue. The color changes; the shine remains.

“I had so much of my life here. It did. But I’m not sure if there is a place for me anymore.” — friend from Tea Talk when reflecting upon his relationship with Austin, which reminded me of mine with LA

When my life is no longer there, is it home? In some ways, it will always be. I will always know exactly where Olympic and La Brea are because of the El Chato taco truck I used to visit at 3am.

The place that was at one point part of our story, is home.

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When asked, “Where are you from?” I often answer, “the Bay Area”. Yet, every time I utter these words, negative emotions surface.

When I first moved to Fremont at age ten, the only times I looked forward to were summer vacations when I went back to China. And SFO (San Francisco International Airport) meant that little girl flying on her own to a place she didn’t feel she belonged, where the officer flagged her passport when she couldn’t speak English and failed to mark on the arrival card that she had food in her luggage.

When I lived here as an adult, the Bay meant driving on the endless freeways triangulating around the Bay. The Bay is just too big, to the point that I was happy getting into a car accident (car was totaled, I was okay) because that meant I had an excuse to not drive anymore.

The Bay Area, despite spending most of my life there, does not feel like home. The environment etched a sort of gloominess and cynicism in me that I haven’t quite gotten rid of yet.

The place we associate negative memories with, need not be home.

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And then there is the city we choose.

I have an energetic connection with New York. The tall buildings and the urban parks are my rhythm and my element.

I like the ways. Jaywalking is walking and idgaf; traffic lights are just suggestions. I can wear a dress everyday and not be faced with a comment for why I’m “dressing up.” The people of New York, many of them, I believe, share an ambition. E.B. White wrote:

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. ...Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.” ― E.B. White, Here Is New York

Home is when an average stranger feels like us.

If Beijing is that 青梅竹马 “green plums and bamboo horse” (meaning childhood sweethearts), LA was that first love, New York is a chosen love at first sight.

Just like love, often it’s less about the perfect city, but the mental commitment.

It’s the willingness to make it home.

And with that commitment, I built myself here a little space I can call my own. It is a 386 sqft apartment filled with the things that are me: a milk bottle from Oslo that has absolutely zero functional use outside of me looking at it, a pink maneki neko (beckoning cat) from dad’s ex-girlfriend that’s meant to attract romance, and a black and white framed photograph of a little girl by an elephant from a museum in Hoi An as a reminder that photography has a power to tell the story from a small corner of the world.

“To me, home is furniture: a radio from the 1950s, a coffee table carved with swans from the 1940s, each has a character that is uniquely infused with our family history.” — Michael Dean, in reference to the old furniture inherited from grandparents from both sides of the family that they bring with them every time they move

Your home is people’s first impression of you. Ultimately, I feel proud to say, “I live in New York.” I tie my identity to this place.

The place where we’re proudly building ourselves, is home.

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Home is a feeling.

Back in the Bay Area, seeing dad reading wenxuecheng under the large oak tree in the backyard and stepmom feeding the squirrel that come for peanuts every day, seeing mom drinking her favorite instant coffee with milk and stepdad sneakily looking for cookies in the pantry, I feel at home.

Our unofficial pet squirrel.

Because they’re there, the Bay is still sort of home.

The houses they live in are not where I grew up; the furniture is not familiar; I don’t have my memories there. But it’s not always about the place. I could be sitting in an Airbnb in Toronto or Botswana (we often travel together as a family), but if I woke up knowing they were there, it feels like home.

Wherever loved ones are, is home.

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I often think, one day I’ll build a little family of my own: waiting for a loving husband to come home for dinner, biking children to school. No matter where they are in the world, that will be my home.

At times I have wondered, because I travel too much and do not have that little family of my own, maybe I don’t have a real home.

Then I realize, that’s deferring that vision of a home to the future. How do I feel at home now?

Recently, I did a visualization while doing my annual review: “Imagine you’re at a place you call home, where you feel the most comfortable…”

The vision that came to mind is a coffee shop in an unfamiliar city.

It’s unfamiliar, yet very familiar. I’ve sat at cafes in Tel Aviv, Vienna, São Paulo, Kathmandu, the list goes on. They’re my comfort place when I travel. The strangers in those spaces feel familiar. Coffee shops inspire, they’re places that give me energy. And what’s beyond the coffee shop, is a world to discover.

I use the act of writing to convince myself that I do in fact, have a home (or multiple homes). Maybe feeling at home now is accepting the fact that home is not one place, not one definition, but takes multiple shapes and forms.

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And here, are friends’ definitions of home:

Home is mac-n-cheese.

Where I feel at home with my body. When I immerse myself in a body of water.

Where I felt community for the first time.

Home means hugs from your loved ones.

When a stranger from the Internet says something so special that no physical friends ever said.

Where I feel relaxed, safe, where I can be myself.

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What is home to you? Respond to this email or comment below, would love to hear from you 🕯️

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Be Always Coming Home by Ursula LeGuin

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well loved one,
walk mindfully, well loved one,
walk fearlessly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us,
be always coming home.

(source)

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Thank you friends from Essay Club and Write of Passage for the ideation and the edits: Rik van den Berge, Dominik Gmeiner (Dominik Gmeiner), Michael Dean (Michael Dean), and Lily (Lily).