Home Is Where You Park It
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“Trans or Rez?” A bellhop asks this question of Barton Fink, title character in the 1991 Coen brothers film. Barton Fink is set in the 1940s, when the bellhop (played by Steve Buscemi) was likely clueless about the possible transgender or immigration implications of his question.
“Trans or Rez?” he inquires, to find out if Barton is going to be a transient guest of the hotel or a long-term resident. When I move to a new place I always have a moment when I look out and I wonder, “Will I call this place home?” And Steve Buscemi’s whiney voice will inevitably pipe up and ask me: “Trans or Rez?”
How do you know when you are ready to become a resident, to settle in, to call it home? After all, a place is only a home because you call it that. There is nothing inherent within any dwelling that makes it home. Home happens in the individual relationship, in the space between you and the place.
But what do I know about what makes something home-worthy? Not much. I’ve moved something like 30 times throughout my 43 years.
I lived in St. Louis for nine of my childhood years, but in four different houses during that era.
I lived in New York City for most of my young adult years between 18 and 31, but moved so often I’ll have to guess that I lived in at least 12 apartments and two houses. (I won’t even attempt to count all the roommates.)
I lived in Portland, Oregon for six years, five of which were actually in the same house. Throughout my entire life these five years were the longest I have ever stayed in the same dwelling.
I was bred to move. My early childhood was shaped by my father’s career in beer distribution, so every other year we moved throughout the South whenever he was promoted. Eventually our family returned to St. Louis, where both of my parents were raised and where both sides of my family have lived for six generations.
So when people ask, “Where are you from?” I usually say “St. Louis,” feeling my grandmothers smile down at me. Recently, however, I’ve taken my nomadic tendencies to a whole new level: I live in an RV with my husband and our two children.
Our RV life (La Vida RVida in Harvey the RV) began after a series of unplanned events that resulted in my husband working online from home while our children began homeschooling. So we were suddenly not geographically bound by a job or a school. We realized that we could live anywhere and we could move at any time.
We started dreaming of a life with very few possessions and very few expen-ses. A life where we could teach the kids by exploring the world—where we could play outside and be warm and dry all year round.
Wanderlust started to set in, and we were hooked. After a year of blog trolling and jettisoning every bit of our furniture, we eventually had an empty house and new plan. We found our ideal rig and our ideal campground. We would live at Campland on the Bay in San Diego in a 34-foot, fifth-wheel trailer. There’s a bedroom with a queen sized bed that extends over the cab of the truck and a little room with bunk beds for the kids. In between the two bedrooms are a kitchen, couch and dinette. The couch and dinette are built onto a platform that slides out to expand the square footage when the trailer is inhabited. It’s like a 300 square foot, two-bedroom house.
James B. Twitchell wrote a cultural commentary called Winnebago Nation in which he chronicles the place of the RV in American culture. He talks about RVs and the notion of “farsickness”—how we humans yearn for what is far away and wonder what happens when we follow curiosity all the way to its end; how for some, the RV catalyzes a desire to cut loose from dulling routines that keep domestic life afloat.
When we moved into the RV, we knew our family could travel if we wished, but we decided to do the radical thing: stay put. We fell in love with San Diego in general and with Campland in particular, an RV park with a beachside location, marina and pools, plus dodgeball every Tuesday and Thursday. We easily settled in and called it home.
Staying put allows us to avoid paying for an expensive truck, gas, weekly campground rates and creating all the pollution associated with RV travel. Staying put allows us to maintain friendships, book clubs, violin and karate teachers. We live in our RV much the way someone would live in a small beach-front apartment, except our neighbors can change every day.
Part of why it has worked for our family of four to live in such a small space is that we all spend so much of our daily life outside. San Diego weather is almost always lukewarm, year ‘round. My husband takes conference calls while walking through the campground’s parks and beach. My kids roam free, climbing trees, skateboarding and biking throughout the campground where cars are only allowed to travel at 5 miles per hour. My daughter reads for hours in the hammock. We often eat meals and host guests at our picnic table.
They say home is where the heart is and that there is no place like it. And maybe this is true. Maybe home is where we can realize our deepest, truest selves because our surroundings inspire us to find that sweet spot between being engaged with the world and being at ease and at peace.
At home we find the people with whom we are deeply connected and inspired, people who remind us why we are here—here in this place, here on this land, here in this life. When we are at home we find places to rest and we find places to express ourselves, places to be silent and places to be heard.
We each have our own preferences, attractions and inspirations about the places we call home. One person’s “Trans” will be another person’s “Rez.” One person’s place of home will be where another person will say, “Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
But are there any truths about home that are true for all of us and not just left to individual preferences? Is there anything in life that is always transient for all of us? Is there anything in life that is always permanent for all of us?
The simplest response to this question is that we are all earthlings. We may all have our preferences about the particular nook that we find most inviting, but ultimately Earth is the one home that we all have in common.
I was recently reminded of what it means to be an earthling when it was unusually busy at Campland. The place was packed—sold out, in fact, with lots of pop music playing from campers and from golf carts cruising around. Lots of people sitting in circles around fires, eating meals outside, greeting one another with hugs, laughing, riding bikes and scooters, nearby swimmers calling out “Marco! Polo!” It was hard to even walk through the campground because it was so full of people.
And then I woke up very early the next morning for no particular reason. I went outside into the cool of pre-dawn to see the place so full of campers, and yet so still it seemed deserted. Just hours ago the same area was full of games and meals. But in the quiet glow of morning, there arose an endearing, simple truth: we are all just soft creatures of the Earth who retreat into the dark cave of night to find rest. Somehow we all know how to keep that silence, how to protect it for one another.
Our bodies are of the Earth. We gravitate toward rest and reflection in the cold seasons, just as we gravitate toward growth and activity with the warm seasons. Our energies rise and fall with the full and new moons, even when we don’t know it’s happening. We are home with Earth, getting familiar with our closest neighbors, those native plant beings and animal beings, our fellow earthlings.
Our years in these bodies are limited. None of us are permanent residents of Earth. We are all passing through this body and this life. We’re all transient. None of us are “Rez.”
However, whenever something dies we could say that this being goes back to the Earth. Our body’s particular combination of elements will give way and it will perhaps shape-shift into ash and be scattered in a river or more slowly become one with the dirt, nourishing the soil for future life. Perhaps on a chemical level these transformations and permutations of being an earthling on this planetary home are endless, eternal.
“All life is impermanent,” the ancients tell us. “To live in harmony with this truth brings great happiness.”
And in this ever-evolving world, on ever-evolving Earth, amid these ever-evolving bodies, perhaps there is a Love that remains a constant and mysterious presence; a Love within which every breath is held and released; a Love where we live and breathe and have our being, in every moment, in every dimension; a Love from which we each have emerged in birth; a Love into which we will return in death.
When we ask ourselves what is it that makes a home, we can certainly look toward our relationship to the local people and places that call us forward. We can certainly look toward the building and the land where we live. But we can also look within to see that we are really just made of Earth and Love and we are always already home.
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