sometimes i still see glimpses of past “homes”, whether its when i’m blankly staring at something or simply in my mind, a puzzle put together with pieces of my fading memories. these images of my fragmented memories are like disappearing smells, scents that you know no longer actually exist in space at this time in life and never again will be. my images of my past homes will never be again. they will never be again what they once used to be, and never will be to me what they once meant to me. i can never go back, ever again. i mean, physically i can return to, let’s say, the geographical location of Los Angeles California. but LA as it had once in space and time existed when i walked its streets, though it may not change on the exterior, will never be what it was in those specific moments in time. just as i will never be again that same me. and they will be forever remain confined within the tattered edges of ethereal photographs imprinted in my brain. images that with time and recollection will change eventually and morph into something which only in essence will exist within me, shrunk down to a reflection of how i perceive, process, feel and who i was at that point in time.
those changes seem to begin or at least take form usually in the in the boarding lounges in airports. while sitting there, trying to take in the fact that i’m leaving, something shifts within and nothing goes back to the way it was.
if my life could be broken down, simplified and summarized, it would narrow down to those moments of sitting in airport chairs with cold backs and hard armrests, staring into the lights in the ceiling and feeling the shift. it doesn’t have to be an airport; it’s just more recognizable in an airport as it’s the one place where i’ve always experienced those shifts.. airport is the place all my paths cross, the one place where suddenly i feel like all my lives have come to a intersection and inexplicably meet inside me. i am no longer going from one place to another. i’m back at a crossroad where i can trace all the roads leading to and fro from, what seem to be, all my “past lives”. and there i am allowed the temporary freedom of being just me. it’s this transitory point which connects the continuous travel between liminal periods of my life that perhaps is my only true home.
if you want to find me, look for me under the flickering fluorescent lights of sterile airports. i’m always there.
Thanks everyone. Sorry this is a late response! Haven’t been to this site in a while.Â
Elizabeth, I hope moving “home” has been good to you! I recently moved again and I guess going through that process once more has led me back to this tck website, seeking to feel somewhat at home with people like me. 🙂