I am home
Epiphany or cliché? That’s for you to decide.
As luck would have it, I’m starting this newsletter while sitting on the floor at LaGuardia’s Gate 1, waiting to get back home.
I just spent a short but full 48 hours here with my two eldest children and, despite a few bickers and some minor tears shed, we had a really good time. It was great to just walk around, ride around, and sail around, looking at all the stuff. And New York City sure does have a lot of stuff, doesn’t it?
I lived here for a while, down at 6th street near Washington Park, though few people likely remember that and even fewer would consider what I did here to be “living.” I stayed here for 3 weeks while taking a summer course. I enjoyed myself, enjoyed living in a city for the first time since my three years in college in Boston, enjoyed making new, like-minded friends from all over the country.
And when each day was done, whether that was at 3pm or *ahem* 3am, I headed back home. That’s what I called the little double dorm room I shared with a colleague (one who would later manage to bury the proverbial knife between my shoulder blades and all the way up to the hilt, but who was exactly the friend I needed in that very narrow window of my life). And that’s what I called every other such dorm room. That’s what I’ll likely call the room where I stay in York in September, too. Home.
I don’t know if everyone does this, or if this is my unique way of interacting with my surroundings, acknowledging that anywhere, with anyone, can feel like home if I give myself over to it. In New York, when I said to the girls, “Let’s go home,” I didn’t mean the home with their father and brother and the chickens and swing set in the backyard. I meant the hotel. The place we slept for a couple nights on - and I cannot stress this enough - supremely uncomfortable beds. The place where the food was … fine. It was every other hotel I’ve ever stayed at (except half the square footage because, New York). But for those two days, Room 1410 was home.
My first house, the one I remember from the first 10 years of my life. That was home. And the one we moved to and where my parents lived for 22 years (the one with the possibly imaginary creek, pond, and orchard). Home. My summer sublet between sophomore and junior year, the place where I moved when my shitty boyfriend wrecked our apartment and wouldn’t leave, my first house with my husband - the one with the cracked foundation and the very poorly-supported addition. Home, home, home.
New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Boston. All home. If I ever stay anywhere else, that will be home, too.
Today, home is the Harbor and the Charles and the rainbow that greeted us over Charlestown when we emerged from the catacombs of the airport. Home is baby boy, and the bed that disappears me into it, and the groans of the dog in the middle of the night.
It’s my familiar computer, on my familiar lap, on my familiar couch, and it’s watching a movie I’ve seen a million and a half times, just because it makes the rest of them happy.
Home is here.
I am home.
P.S. Now, I said I started this in LaGuardia. I’m finishing it on my couch in the dark, a day and a half later, partially because I haven’t had a moment to think since I got home, and partially because I kept thinking of cool things to add. But it’s done now, and I only have questions for you. 1) What, or where, is home for you? Are you a chameleon like me, or do you need more of an anchor to consider a place home?
P.P.S. I’ve been thinking and thinking on the title of the book. I am zero percent married to the title of The Other Women, which I only chose because I needed to enter something into the “Title” field of my National Novel Writing Month goal tracker. Just after that happened, when I was still in draft phase, there was a book called The Other Woman, which featured prominently at my library’s new hardcover display and may have been made into a film/show/something? I’ve had a couple people tell me the title didn’t seem to fit, which - fine. It fits for me, but maybe that’s because I’ve been staring at it for 3.5 years and don’t know any better. I haven’t worried too much about it, because I know publishers change titles all the time - a book might even have one title in the US and another in Europe. So I figured when I got a publisher, we’d worry about it then and no one would probably hold the title too much against me until then.
But, well, I don’t have a publisher, and I don’t even have an agent, and I am starting to consider alternative publication pathways including self-publishing, and I am thinking that it could be in my best interest to think of a new, more fitting title now rather than leaving it up to some nebulous future.
So, I’ll be looking at that in the next few weeks, which brings me to question 2) If you’ve read the book, did you think the title fit? Can you think of a better one? I was up at 4am with the toddler, and I came up with some delirious ideas at that hour, but I don’t want to sway you. Let me know by replying to this email or leaving a comment on this post. See you next time!