Home or Away?

Spring Training baseball starts in a few days. I love going to spring training games. I thought, last year, that I finally had a mechanism in place for the family that would allow for some spring ball every year. But that fell apart, didn’t it? I’m not complaining; I’m just registering my personal disappointment… and my understanding that, as the Rolling Stones put it, “you can’t always get what you want.”

We’re at the beach this weekend, the kids and I. It’s a three day weekend for the kids; I took a vacation day on Monday, and we’ve been here since M finished ballet rehearsal. The question I’ve been pondering is this: am I at Home? Or am I Away?

Where exactly is Home? What constitutes Home?  My folks have owned this property for 30 years. Chances are good that the property will stay in the family beyond them. This has been the place to visit my folks for longer than all other addresses combined. I may not have gone to school in this community as a child, but there’s MUCH more sense of home for me here than anywhere else.

Hillsboro is my home town for school and the like. But I only lived there for twelve years and have been away for more than twice as long. So much has changed in that town that I only recognize vague pieces of the place nowadays.

So where is Home?

On the one hand: according to the Post Office and the law, Home is where I get my mail. That’s a reasonable distinction. In that case, my Home is in the city. But that seems like a rather tenuous thread to Home.

On the other hand: I tell colleagues, friends and neighbors in my community that we’re “going away” to the beach. Except, I’m really going home, aren’t I? I’m more “away” when I’m in the city, living in my city house, going to my city job. Given the choice to retire today, would I stay in the city or go to the beach full-time? Odds are I’d go to the beach. So… where exactly is Home?

My folks live here. But that’s not exactly why it qualifies as Home. Parents move to new places. The post-parenting home is not always a place the children will call home for themselves. Retirement communities, snowbird lifestyles, and the like, are more like Away than Home. I have some friends who, for a variety of circumstances, are living with their parents for the time-being. They don’t necessarily feel like they’re Home. There’s more to Home than where the Parents are.

In baseball, each team gets to play half of their games in their home venue. The other half – the road games – are spread out amongst about two dozen various stadiums. No player knows a field better than their home field. They can play their best there, if for no other reason than their familiarity with the place. Is that the city? Not necessarily. Is it the beach? Very likely. I’ve much more time spent at the beach. I’ve more connection to the place. My children, myself, and my parents include this place as a part of our personal identity. In fact, this place has drawn four generations of my family into it’s loving embrace. From my grandmother Iola, right down to my two kids.

Yesterday, the kids and I climbed up the hillside at the Cape. It’s a big sand dune, this particular Cape. M was telling me that it was the first time she’d gone all the way to the summit. She’d been on the dune face many times before, but not over the summit because she needed a grownup with her. I qualified, so over the top we went. As we climbed the dune, I shared with M that I’d been climbing that dune since I was her age – ten years old. Then, I shared that she, at the age when I started coming here, could say “I’ve been climbing this dune for my WHOLE LIFE!” I think that qualifies as Home.

So, today, when we drive back to town, we’ll be going away. It was nice to have a weekend home stand with the entire category 3 Typhoon Johnson. This little community may not be much, but like the Rolling Stones said with their next thought: “if you try some time, you’ll find, you get what you need!”