Ramblings on "Home"
I tried to be coherent but the world is on fire
What are your favorite things about where you are from? Is it the afternoon thunderstorms in the summer? The walls of bougainvillea that line the streets of your childhood? Will you wax poetic about the food that is indigenous to your place of birth? Are the bagels that remind you of your childhood simply impossible to replicate outside of the shop that sells them next to the former Grand Union supermarket? Is the hot dish that your grandma made every year for your birthday the only thing that makes you feel safe in the world? Do you travel and find that nowhere else even has Sweet Tea that you grew up drinking every single day?
Our identities get wrapped up in our food, in our music, our flora and fauna and weather. And sometimes we don’t even notice what we’re missing until we find ourselves away from it. Or maybe even more often, many of us never leave the places that we grew up in long enough to know that the weather patterns of our lives have become a part of our nervous system.
Moving from New York to New Jersey to New York to Los Angeles wasn’t exactly smooth, but it wasn’t jarring either. Culturally, while the cities share almost nothing, they have a dual exchange program, if you will. I don’t need to tell you about the traffic in Los Angeles, or the sometimes humanity found on the subways in New York; those have been written about ad nauseum. BUT…
Moving from Los Angeles after fourteen years to Mississippi has been jarring. Possibly in no way more so than with regard to the weather. I have spent over a decade relishing being outdoors in the crisp mornings and cool evenings. Baking in the sun alongside swimming pools in January, gnawing through layers of June Gloom to get to the beach in time for the marine layer to fuck off back into the sea. I have watched rain fall in torrents outside my windows in the winter and patiently awaited its return through months of blue skies all summer long, praying for a cloud.
There is a reason that people move to Los Angeles for the weather. Mississippi may not have the brutal, gray, cold winters that I grew up with in the Northeast, but don’t get it twisted… the weather here is absolute shite. Forgive my candid words here, but my god, being outside here is horrific. I have this beautiful yard and if I dare go outside to enjoy it, I am pummeled by a trifecta of bullshit nearly immediately: 1) a true river of sweat begins from the top of my neck and flows down my back, 2) seventeen mosquitos of varying sizes descend upon me, smelling the river of sweat no doubt. There is no amount of deet or citronella or swatting that will make them go away. In LA, I would make a game of killing mosquitos on my balcony and felt as if I might be making a dent in their demise. Here, every time I kill one, another is born of its wrath. I have never loathed a living creature the way I despise the mosquito, and 3) the sun. The shade is fine sometimes (although, the mosquitos live there, beware!), but the sun. The sun is as hot as it was in LA, but it is also dripping on us here. It must be. There is no other explanation. The sun is butter left to sit on the stove and it is being poured onto my body and that is why I am so wet within minutes of going outside. Anyway, I took my dog outside for ten minutes earlier today and I have been recovering with fluids for the past six hours. Don’t move here thinking you will enjoy the green outdoors. You will enjoy the air conditioning in your house. I will not be taking questions on the cost of the air conditioning or the climate impact of running it 24/7 from May until October. I simply do not have the mental capacity to think about this right now because I’m very sweaty and also, :gestures wildly at everything:.
Anyway. To continue the ramblings of my overheated brain:
What summer smells like to a person might be the single greatest indicator of where and when they grew up. To me, summer smells slightly salty and grassy, a little bit like a charcoal grill. It tastes a lot like lemonade and looks like fireflies and fireworks and swimming in cold lakes. What does summer smell, taste and look like to you?
How about some reader participation. Leave a comment with what smell, or taste, or sound reminds you of the places you have lived. Leave a comment with what identity means to you. Leave a comment with what else you want from this newsletter, because I can only write about the humidity for so long*
*Actually, I could probably spend another six weeks writing about the humidity, so let me know if you want that.
This is like Proust's madeleine but for summer! Mine smells like salt and sand and overheated heather and gorse. Afternoon snacks of baguettes with butter and chocolate bars (but careful the sand doesn't get in it). Wind and being cold coming back from the sea so you have to run on the hard sand (because the beach becomes miles long at low tide). Climbing rocks and exploring tide pools, the feeling of the dried up seashells on naked feet. Reading lots of graphic novels. Barbecued line mackerels with steamed potatoes dripping in butter. Buckwheat crêpes! I try to make them and they're good but just not the same ;)