You Can't Go Home Again - Part 4

Parts 1 through 3 I wrote at one of my favorite places in Raleigh, NC – it’s the Global Village Organic Coffeehouse.  It’s located at 2428 Hillsborough St, across from NC State’s campus.  For about two years and some change that was a home away from home for me.  I was also an employee there for an all too brief duration and it’s probably my favorite place of work.  Caribou Coffee would be second in that pecking order, and my manager there is fantastic, but nothing really compares to the warmth and sense of belonging of Global Village.

What is it that makes a place home?

As I type this, I am now back in Columbus, Ohio (heh, at a Starbucks of all places).  I moved here just over a year ago, away from home.  Yet, my first night back, as I was riding in the car down 270, I didn’t really feel like I had left home.  Clearly, I wasn’t in the Triangle area anymore, but there was no sense of displacement; I did not find myself in unfamiliar surroundings.  Had I been driving, I would have been able to navigate the highways with the greatest of ease.

But it’s not just the familiarity of the area that has me nice and loose – it’s the people.

Over the last six months I’ve been building and establishing a life.  I began to embrace my role as a customer service rep at my job.  I developed a working friendship with my Navy recruiter as I began that process (and that’s a story and a half).  In April, I was introduced to a group of folks out of which I have a new friend base.  At my member church, I’ve deepened key relationships there.

Backing up a little bit, when I drove down from Ohio to North Carolina, I stopped in Asheville to have some pizza, beer and ping-pong action for a couple hours, reconnecting with an old high school friend.  I had never been to Asheville before.  Driving around, trying to find a parking place in the downtown area, I could have easily been overwhelmed and freaked out – and I have in lesser situations.  But I didn’t let it worry me – I was going to see my bud in a few minutes!  A bud I hadn’t seen in over ten years!

When we finally connected, it wasn’t as if the intervening years hadn’t happened, but still I knew, here was my friend; a part of my history as I am a part of his.  Some things about both of us have changed, but at our cores we’re the same and that shone through, allowing us to catch up and then talk about the future.  It was like being at home again.

Back in the Triangle, a lot of stuff has changed.  New businesses, roads, all kinds of things have sprouted up.  A lot has remained the same, but, for instance, the church I grew up in has switched locations.  Yet, attending the service there both Sundays, I never felt out of place; I saw a lot of unfamiliar faces, but there is a core of people present who I’ve known most of, if not all of, my life.  In the greater Triangle area there are even more friends I’ve gotten to know in recent years and I was able to visit with some of them.  In an area that has seen so much change and growth, I still felt as though I was at home again.

Back in Ohio, among friends I’ve gotten to know over the last few months, I feel like I am home again.

I can fit all of my possessions into my 2008 Saturn Astra.  My “permanent” address is that of an apartment.  Currently I have access only to a suitcase and laptop bag’s worth of my stuff and no access to my car.  Yet, I am perfectly at ease.

What is it that makes a place home?  The people, yes, but there’s something even deeper we’ll get to tomorrow…

Grace Abounds In A Home With Squeaky Floors

It's Guest Post Thursday!  Today's guest is Rachel of http://becomingrachelmeitl.blogspot.com/.  Rachel is a wife, a very creative interior decorator and cook, and most recently a new mother.  

Grace Abounds In A Home With Squeaky Floors - by Rachel Meitl

The gospel of grace calls us to sing of the everyday mystery of intimacy with God instead of always seeking for miracles or visions. It calls us to sing of the spiritual roots of such commonplace experiences as falling in love, telling the truth, raising a child, teaching a class, forgiving each other after we have hurt each other, standing together in the bad weather of life, of surprise and sexuality, and the radiance of existence. Of such is the kingdom of heaven, and of such homely mysteries is genuine religion made. Grace abounds and walks around the edges of our everyday experience. - Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

A couple of months ago my husband and I moved into our "new" house (built in 1991) with a very pregnant belly.  A couple of weeks later we brought baby Audrey home.  Walking around the house the floors squeak and I'm starting to learn the spots.  I'm learning where to step and where not to step when tip toeing around the sleeping baby.

The baby is sleeping right now so I have some quiet time to do "me" things.  I'm working on a slipcover for a crummy old ottoman I got for $20 off of craigslist.  Walking around in the room with the ottoman I found a new squeaky spot and I smiled to myself.

This house immediately felt like home to me, and the squeaky floors are part of that.  They remind me of... home.  They remind me of the home I spent my first 18 years in and they make me want this to be the home baby Audrey spends her first 18 years in.

The squeaky floors remind me of my 5-year old self waking my mom in the middle of the night for a snack.  Sitting at the kitchen table with her, a little bit of pepsi, and some cheese crackers.  Loving that we were up while the neighborhood slept.  

The squeaky floors remind me of my 7-year old self racing through the house to the restroom in the middle of the night.  Racing, because I was scared of what lurked where it was too dark to see.  

They remind me of playing rummy by flashlight or candlelight when the electricity would go out.  

They remind me of dragging furniture from my room to my brothers room and from my brothers room to my room... weeks after he had gotten new wallpaper... now my wallpaper.  Blue, with little white seagulls I think.  They remind me of dragging the same furniture back to their original rooms months later. 

Waking up and tip-toeing to my dad's brown lazy-boy chair.  Curling up with my head on one of the arms and looking into the kitchen until someone noticed I was up.  My parents stirring their coffee and chatting.

The one window that always let in water when it rained.  At least it was the bathroom window!  I can even hear the sound of the wooden shutters that hung on the inside of that window.

Sitting on the back porch in a wet bathing suit, wrapped in a worn-thin beach towel, water dripping onto the floor from my dangling feet, eating a tomato stuffed with seafood salad, squeezed with lemon, and surrounded by triscuits.  

They remind me of my 9-year old self knocking on the shower wall, signaling my mom that I was ready for the towel that had been warming by the wood-stove.  Sitting with my back to that wood-stove to dry my long hair.

The squeaky floors remind me of my 17-year old self coming home late after everyone had gone to bed. Coming home to find a "mibb" warming the bed where my feet would go and a sweet note from mom on my pillow.  

The things that were normal and mundane have become the things that shape the memories of my childhood and they have become the things that bring to mind happiness when I look back.  

The squeaky floors in our new old house bring to mind happiness when I look back.  I pray that Audrey's normal and mundane experiences in this house become happy memories of her childhood one day.  I pray that she finds love in the ordinary things and I especially pray that she finds God in the ordinary things... that she recognizes all the blessings that so many of us tend to overlook.  

The Misfit Lightning Bug

Hello, my name is Cliff.  I live in Ohio, by way of North Carolina, by way of Georgia, by way of North Carolina, by way of Arkansas, by way of North Carolina, by way of Birth Canal.  I’ve spent the bulk of my waking life in North Carolina, the Raleigh-Durham area, specifically.

It’s strange, because North Carolina is in the South and several of its inhabitants have Southern accents; I do not.  I appreciate the Southern accent, I like the Southern accent, but I lack one of my own.  Whenever I tell people where I’m from they do a double-take and say, “But you don’t have an accent!”  Usually I don’t mind such astute observations, but sometimes it makes me feel like the only lightning bug in the world whose butt won’t light up.

The lack of accent may have to do with my parents who both lack accents of their own, and/or perhaps the particular town in which I was raised (for most of my life): Cary, NC.  Over the years, due to a significant influx of folks from the North, the name “Cary” was imbued with the meaning of an acronym which stands for “Central Area of Relocated Yankees.”  So while a number of people around me as I grew up had Southern accents, a large section of the population did not.

While the obvious accent is lacking, I do pride myself on the prominent usage of distinctly Southern words and sayings such as, “y’all,” “shucks,” “ain’t,” “if it was a snake it would’ve jumped up and bit me,” and “stomp on frogs and shove a crowbar up my nose!”  And it’s not something I consciously try to do; it’s just how I talk (except, admittedly, maybe for that last one which I actually picked up from Garfield).

I do like some Country music, but mostly of the old-school flavor: Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson and some Toby Keith.  Usually, though, I have to be in the mood (except for Johnny – his tunes are good anytime).  Bluegrass music is wonderful as is Southern Gospel – and straight-up, massive-choir-gettin’-down-to-the-tunes-of-the-Good News, clap-your-hands-and-stand-up Gospel. 

Square-dancing is a lot of fun and line-dancing is alright.  And Southern hospitality – it’s one of my favorite things about the South.  For one thing, you’re always going to get a good meal when you’re invited to someone’s home for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  There’s a natural sense of ease among most of the folks and while punctuality is important, if you do it right, you never feel like you need to be in a hurry.  There’s also a general sense of friendliness.  Walking along the streets of Cary or Raleigh, Wilmington or New Bern, you can say, “Hey,” and smile to passersby and you’ll at least get a “Hey” back and not a funny look. 

But there is one thing: I don’t like sweet tea.  I like hot tea, but not sweet tea.  While visiting a family one Sunday I was asked if I’d like sweet tea as my lunch beverage.  I politely declined and asked for water instead.  Everyone seemed shocked that I didn’t want sweet tea.  “Well, you’re obviously not from around here,” they observed.  I explained that I’m actually one of the few natives of the Raleigh-Durham area.  “But you don’t have an accent!” they aptly observed.  I shrugged my shoulders and agreed.  Then the awkward moment passed and we had a good old time eating and talking and later playing some football or something.

So, while I proudly and affectionately call North Carolina home, I am missing two fundamental social markers: the accent and affinity for sweet tea.  It makes me feel out of place sometimes, like the misfit lightning bug, but then everyone else gathers ‘round and we share the ambient light of their glowing rear ends and sometimes I think my own starts to flicker a bit.  I’m given the occasional hard time, but it ultimately doesn’t matter that I’m missing something because in the end, I have everything I need.