This past weekend I went to visit my mom (and Ben, Kim, Isaiah, Dom, and Lincoln) in Ames Iowa. My mom recently moved to Ames and purchased a new house that she now calls home. As we drove to Ames my wife and I wondered what it would be like to be in my mom's new house and in a town that was home to a portion of my family, but not me. I have often wondered about the question, "Where are you from?" and the saying, "Home is where the heart is." Well, this weekend I was able to fully understand those two simple, yet complex sentences.
As we pulled into my mom's new driveway I did not know how I would feel upon stepping through her front door. Would it feel like my home or would it feel strange and foreign to me? Entering through the front porch I realized that my mother's home will always feel like home to me. The same old couch my brothers and I used to wrestle on placed securely behind the cedar chest that Ben spent days refinishing in the garage at 404 East 15th street. The white house that is deemed the residence of my mom is not my home, my home exists wherever my mom and her things are located. Looking around the new house I was drawn back to our old house in Yankton and the memories of vaccumming under the dining room table, and trying not to brake the white wash basin in the bathroom. I am certain that my mom will move away from Ames soon and buy a new house, but she will never need to buy a new home.
As for the answer to where I am from...well, lets just say I will always be the Displaced Dakotan from Yankton. I have lived numerous places around the country, but will always be from the first capital of the Dakota Territory that is nestled along the Missouri river.
1 comment:
Just click your heels three times and repeat, "There's no place like hom, there's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
Home for me now is my house. Mom and Dad's house is great, but home to me is my bed and this house that I picked out of about 100 others.
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