Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Home
"But where is home?," asks Julia Child (Meryl Streep) to her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) in one scene of the quasi bio pic of Child, "Julie and Julia." And he responds: "Home is wherever we are." Whether Child and her husband actually had that exchange, I have no idea. Doesn't matter. My wife referred to the scene as we were wondering where our home would be and where do we really belong as we consider leaving our present house for another who knows where within Albany. For many years after I left Puerto Rico in 1980 whenever I was asked whether I missed the island I would say "No, I miss the people I left behind but not the place." And for a long time I have felt homeless, like the "Motherless child" Richie Havens sang about at Woodstock. But homeless without despair because for me people have always been more important than place. When I lived in New York at first I hated the city. I can't remember exactly why but I think my feelings were more ideological than existential. I did love being a student in the city mostly because of the friends I had---a coterie of Colombians, Ecuadorians, Brazilians, Panamanians, and Puerto Ricans at Queens College and a smaller group of Puerto Ricans and Anglos at CUNY's Graduate Center who loved big ideas, music, good food, and art. When I discovered the Village Gate and the Salsa Meets Jazz Series my life in the city changed radically. I still did not think of myself in "A Walker in the City" terms but gradually I began to feel differently about place. My idea of home changed and the city became my place. I've been away from New York now for over 20 years and that distance has made my heart grow fonder. Whenever I go back, which is often, I feel at ease, at home. It makes a difference if you have a sense of the city as a whole, like an aura around your head. I feel like I really know the city, even though what I know is people and places within the city, especially places where one can enjoy good food and good music. So, for me, home cannot be wherever I am; but if there are people I care about and music I can enjoy in any given place, well, that's just about all I need to call that place home. The food is optional.
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They say home is where the heart is. If that's true, I have my heart in a number of places. Most of it is in Puerto Rico, the place I left in 1999 and where my parents, most relatives, and a few close friends live. A part of my heart is in NYC, where I lived with my older brother and spent the three most exciting years of my life, notwithstanding bearing witness to 9/11. Now I left another chunk of my heart in Albany, where other close friends and my girlfriend still live. By the way, I moved to Ohio a week ago, to teach political science.
ReplyDeleteI understand Prof. Cruz's longing for NYC. I have it, too. Sure I didn't live as long as he did, but the experiences were fantastic. Part of them are academic -- that is, my two years at New School with my Latin American friends (mostly Mexican) Some are music-related, like going to the Blue Note a few times to see people like Paquito D'Rivera, Eddie Palmieri, and Chucho Valdés. I also got to see Patato Valdés one night, the Fania All Stars at the Garden, and Ray Barreto play Latin jazz at the Hayden Planetarium.
Now that I think about it, home is indeed where the heart is, and where the heart is makes you feel at ease because you are in a familiar place.