BROOKLYN

    I just watched this movie. Its a pretty standard movie. A young Irish woman immigrates the the United States in the 1950's. Family tragedy has her return home and at some point she has to decide where her home really is. It really made me think. When a person grows up somewhere it is one's home. One can leave and make another home but when does it become one's true home? I suppose for most its when one finds love and makes a family in that new home that that new home becomes home. What else can make the new home one's real home? This of course is the question I grapple with on a daily basis. I guess my  struggle becomes the answer to the question.

You Can Never Go Home Again

     When I was eighteen I read a  book that was not necessarily that prolific, but one line in it was. The line that I found so true was  "You can never go home again". Once you stop living with your parents you can never go back to the way things were before. The older I get the more I realize that its true. This is not a bad thing. It is all part of becoming an independent person.
      Once you are able to support yourself and take care of yourself you can appreciate your parents on a different level. I for one appreciate my mother's cooking more now that I have to make food for myself. Once one does not live with one's parents it is easier to look at one's parents as people who try their best .
       I can never go home again but being with family is always heartwarming because it was my first home . They were the ones who taught me what home is.
      

out of towner

     I have lived in New York for more years than I would like to admit to but I still consider myself an out of towner. Some of my friends find this funny because I have lived in New York longer than I have lived outside of New York. They just don't understand. When someone is Israeli , even if they have lived in the United States longer than they had in Israel we still call them Israeli. When someone came to the United states from Russia as a child and they still  have the accent we call them Russian.                                                                                                                                                When people meet me  especially Brooklynites, they always ask me where I am from even after I have told them that I live in Midwood. My accent betrays me. My outlook on life has been shaped by the place I spent my formative years. Its not that New York hasn't changed me, it has. I am single and child free. My family does not live near me. I have friends, but not roots in New York. To me New York is a place, not a home.

     I do not plan on moving to Israel as a single person, but I might consider it if I married someone who has family in Israel. When I  have been in Israel it did seem like home. I felt homesick for my family when I was there, but I did feel at home there. If I made aliyah I would call myself an Israeli.
     Israel would feel like home in a way New York never has.

all grown up

i remember reading the following saying in a book when i was eighteen years old . 'you can never go home again' meaning once you leave home you can never go back to the way it was. as a young adult that meant being independent when i was out of town but when i visited my parents it was hard to still be the kid.
time passes and the meaning of this proverb changes.
eventually you find a job , friends and  perhaps you marry or  have children. you busy yourself with the things that are important to you.

one day you visit your immediate family and then you realize that though you love them very much you have a life that is very separate than theirs and that  you miss that life tthat you have created when you are away from it. suddenly you realize that you are all grown up .

house vs apartment

i consider my apartment my home, but deep down i feel a real home is  a house. i suppose this is because i grew up in a house .
i visited my mom this past weekend. she lives in the house i grew up in. i spent most of  the weekend indoors because it was oppressively hot outside. i did not have cabin fever . i usually get cabin fever when i spend too many consecutive hours in my apartment. perhaps this is because i live alone. perhaps not.  when i lived in a basement apartment i really enjoyed the fact that i was living in a house. you just opened the door and you were outside.(after climbing a few stairs ) . there was a certain freedom to house living. in an apartment building i dread the elevator chitchat  especially after a long day at work. i need a little time to unwind before socializing. then again i don't mind chitchat with the right person, but in an apartment building there are many i'd rather just nod and smile at than chat with. especially when its late and i have spent the entire day talking.
a house feels like a personal city. an apartment feels like a time share in a city.
im not moving to a house any time soon, but someday i would like to.

there's no place like home

in the wizard of oz dorothy clicked her shoes and said "there's no place like home" . having been a person who always likes to go out on the town, i haven't always been able to relate to dorothy's wish. recently its been easier to understand her sentiment. often when i come home i  immediately think about how good it feels to be home. life can be so stressful . its nice to return to the safe cocoon of my own home.