I’ve been in Louisiana for about two weeks and as much as I’m enjoying myself, I really can’t stop thinking about how I can’t wait to return to California. I was born and raised in California and have never lived anywhere else, nor have I wanted to; I actually don’t know if I’ll ever leave.
Maybe it's the suffocating humidity, or the fact that this is the longest I’ve been away from home, but I find that I’m irritable. I miss all the people and pets and places that were common sights for me to see everyday, I miss my house and my own bed and, most of all, I miss the familiarity and routine that I had, all the way across the country. I miss my mom.
It feels selfish, to be in a new place and have the ability to experience so many new things and to still want to go home, but it’s how I feel. I’ve found that I’ve hit a wall; I still enjoy the city, but I feel as if I’ve been here so long, which I think can be reflected in my work. But I do feel that that is the reality of traveling and being away from home. I reflect on the people who call this place home and how every year they deal with intense heat and an unpredictable hurricane season, a season I’ll only narrowly miss when I leave for home in the beginning of June. Hurricanes have always been a far off thought in my mind, something I’ve always heard of but never experienced. Nothing new for the locals.
Being very studious at CC’s. The Moviegoer on hand.
I’ve been keeping busy with reading, exploring, and, of course, these blogs. Reading a book in the same place that it’s set in is an interesting feeling; I’m sitting in the place someone has written about, clearly a place that was important to them in some way. Currently, I’m sitting in CC’s Coffee House, the same one in which Sarah M. Broom worked over a summer when she was still living in New Orleans. She briefly mentions this in her memoir The Yellow House, learning the ins and outs of the French Quarter from her older brother. I think about my older brother.
I’ve done a lot of thinking during this trip, mostly about my future. When I’m alone or find myself awake late at night I think about if this is how the rest of my life is going to go; I miss home, I miss my family, but I have to grow up and be on my own. I miss my dad. I grew up with only one sibling, unlike Sarah’s 11 other siblings. I was the youngest, the focus of my parents then and still now. We’re all very close which has made this trip all the more difficult. My brother is 10 years older than me so I had a similar experience to someone who is an only child; to this day, I’m bad at sharing. This also made me appreciate solitude.
Being alone is not something I’ve had much experience with on this trip; everywhere I’m surrounded by friends or my roommate (hi Alice!). To clarify, I’m not complaining, but this is something different for me.
“... tourists are passing by in an air-conditioned bus snapping images of your personal destruction”
The lot where the yellow house once stood.
Recently, we took a trip to New Orleans East, the part of the city where Sarah grew up. We visited the short end of Wilson Avenue and saw what used to be the yellow house that she lived in with her family. To me, home is invincible; it can withstand everything, but that’s not the case. To see an empty lot where a home once stood is a strange feeling that leaves you sitting with a strange pit in your stomach. Someone used to live there, that was someone’s safe place once and now, there is only an empty spot. I felt slightly embarrassed at the way we were looking at the lot, a bit like a tourist looking at the destruction of a place, similar to tourism after Katrina. I have to wonder how Sarah would feel about us looking at the place she used to live. I can’t place myself in Sarah’s shoes and imagine how she must feel knowing the house she grew up in is gone.
At the risk of sounding self centered, I think about the houses I’ve lived in throughout my life. At one time, these places were my home. Everytime I left I couldn’t wait to return because that’s where my life was. They are now strange structures to me; unfamiliar yet I know everything about them inside. I have no right to go inside them anymore, but they once held my stuff, my memories, and me. An empty structure to me once I vacated, but to someone else it is where their family is, where they feel safe.
“The house was there, and then it wasn’t. That’s strange, how something could be and then it’s not”
Sitting in the back of Terrence’s car. Meg and Alice are also there!
I don’t think I’ll ever call New Orleans home, but to some people it is the best place they’ve ever lived. I had the pleasure of catching a Lyft home with a driver named Terrence, a very talkative man which was a pleasant surprise; I’ve found many of the Lyft drivers here to be very quiet and keep to themselves, as is their right, but sometimes conversation is nice. He mentioned that he was born in the bayou, but moved to New Orleans as soon as he turned 18 and hasn’t looked back. He said he loves living here; the culture, the music, the food, you’ll never find anything like it. His positivity made me feel abundantly better about being away from home; although it's not my home, New Orleans is home to so many people who love it and would never leave, which is something I can understand.
Although I’ve been talking about places, I don’t think home is one specific place or thing. I think about Terrence whose home was in the bayou and is now in New Orleans. I think about my mom whose home was Mexico and is now California. Home is an ever-changing thing; it is not one place or one person, but something that adapts. I think about Sarah. Her mother made a home for her and her siblings, one that is now gone, but the concept remains. Home is your family, whether found or by blood.
“The house was my beginnings”
I think this whole blog is to say I miss my family. And friends. A lot. While I grow a bit sad at the idea that home is still a few days away, I find pockets of joy. Terrence’s positivity was a welcome interaction, one that I did not expect to impact me in any way, but here we are. While home is adaptive and rarely does our home remain in one spot the entire time, it is a constant factor in our lives. I’m grateful for the home I have and I can’t wait to return to it. But for now, there is still exploring and reading to be done.