Sinister: americans anonymous

[baker,baker]

gina said...

> but to bellezc zoe and the other hundreds of similarly 
> isolated and skint sinisterettes, who think they're 
> ostracized cos they can never get to meet up's  - i think 
> sinister's different when you regularly see the people who 
> read this. i do miss the anonymity to some extent, it's 
> changed from somewhere to say anything and be anyone 
> to a diary that your mum's gonna read and ask you about. 
> obvs, i adore all the ysm and wouldn't want to lose 
> them, ever, but it has changed. revel in your facelessness > -
you never have to explain your post to anyone

when i first read this, i immediately wanted to answer her in
kind -- tell gina that the grass on her side really is greener. 
that our geographical anonymity is a curse, that the isolation
of america is a burden of loneliness and disillusion.

i'm really torn on this issue, though.  i've been to europe a
few times, and i've been all over the states.  everyone has
their own attitudes and opinions about the differences and
merits of everybody's social situations -- i'm not going to bore
anyone with my own half-form criticisms on those matters -- but
there have been a few places at least... cities and towns and
countrysides i've seen...  where something felt more peaceful
and friendly and homey than the place i live.  heidelberg. 
county kerry.  ashville.  wloclawek.

it's really quite silly but gina has got me thinking about home.
 what really makes someplace my home?  i heard someone say once
that the first step towards realizing nirvana is realizing that
everywhere is Home.  i'm not sure if that's true.

i remember:

*standing on the beach in ireland, letting the waves creep up
over my toes when i was standing barefoot on the rocks.  salt in
the air about my shoulders.  tiny fish trapped in puddles,
waiting for the tide.

*a pub in heidelberg, drinking and laughing with the old german
men, proud of their wristwatches.

*teaching american football to little polish kids in a dirt
parking lot, breaking the language barrier with giggling and
wild gestures.  rolling our eyes like we were drunk.

all these moments make up a version of home i'd really like to
believe in.  a kind of home that includes memories of first
kisses and old friends.  a home that waits for me between the
ancient pages of musty, beautiful dictionaries.  a home that has
limbs and lips, that i can wrestle and bite on the neck, like a
lover, tangled up with me in the sheets and falling over
herself, on a bed that is also my home, in a room that is my
home, in a house and a city and a world of lucid, tangible
softness that always welcomes me, always has breakfast waiting
on the table, always embraces you like you've been gone for a
year when it's only been ten minutes since you left for the
grocery.

it's easier to believe in a home like that, i'll bet, when
you're in love.

but i am not in love.  i'm not in lust or quasi-lust.  i don't
have a single crush.  and my home is really just a brick and
wooden building in palos, a distant suburb of chicago -- a
wealthy, pretentious, faraway dreamland where the only pride
anyone feels comes not from their community but from their
status therein.  where corporate ladders and neighborhood totem
poles exist everywhere, like streetlamps.  the ground here is
littered with atm receipts and half-drunk skim lattes in paper
cups.

(this is not a message of despair, however.)

see, maybe both of my visions of home are valid.  maybe i live
in a snobby little town in illinois and maybe i live in a world
of dreams and memories.  my dreams are balanced out by
nightmares, you see, and my memories include deep heartbreak and
loss.  and palos -- for all the strip malls and golf courses and
retirement communities -- i still love palos.  it is my home, as
much as the atlantic ocean and the black forest and the grand
tetons are the grandiose homes of my dreams.  beautiful, absurd,
touchably concrete...  we all have real places that will always
be our homes, no matter how far we travel or how far we fall in
love of any exotic geographies.  


so tell me.  what is YOUR home like?


love,
baker,baker


p.s.  at this point i wanted to include a beautiful essay about
palos, written by a good friend and neighbor of mine.  if anyone
is interested, i'd be happy to share it , especially if you'd be
willing to give me a little bit of insight concerning your own
place of residence.  geography -- personal geography -- delights
and fascinates me.

p.p.s.  sorry if i this was boring.  people on the list chide
themselves often for not including b&s content in their posts. 
of this i am doubly guilty -- not only do i lack content, but i
also lack the decency to acknowledge said lack of substance
anywhere in the body of my posts.  i really do swear that bee
and ess are my absolute most favorite of favorites.  i mean it.

p.p.p.s.  also i wish sometimes i had funnier things to say.




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