The True Home
Mar. 11th, 2014 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebEdward Abbey's Desert Solitaire starts like this:
This is the most beautiful place on earth.
There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmire, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio or Rome--there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment. Theologians, sky pilots, astronauts have even felt the appeal of home calling to them from up above, in the cold black outback of interstellar space.
After reading that, I wondered if I have a place like that. I agree with the author that the area around Moab, Utah, and Arches National Monument is gorgeous. I also like lots of northeastern New Mexico, with the multicolored rock against different greys and green-greys of the plant life with the occasional run of hardened black lava. In my part of the world, I like Inks Lake State Park, made of pink granite on which grows multiple kinds of lichens, surrounding a deep blue-green lake. I am fascinated with desert rock and the fact that plants can still make a life there.
But I wouldn't say those places have the appeal of home. Probably my best answer to that is having woods outside my window. When I worked at summer camp, we slept in four-person platform tents with the canvas sides rolled up to let in the breeze. I loved waking up in the morning to the sight of trees everywhere.
Later, I got a similar feeling when I moved in with my old roommate McKath. I got a room in the back with two windows meeting in the corner. I put my bed there where again I could see trees (from the back yard) when I woke up. (Note: you are not supposed to put your bed next to windows because bad guys can just yank you out of bed from outside.)
And I love walking down wooded trails (when I'm wearing insect repellant), so that's probably my answer.
Another approach to the question is to look at what I have learned from moving. I've learned that the first thing I like to do (after unpacking the toilet paper, of course) is to hang up my pictures, even if there's a chance I'll change my mind on where they'll go as I finalize the furniture placement. Without pictures, a place feels cold and sterile to me, the opposite of home.
But really what I love are bookshelves, especially when they are made of unpainted wood and filled with treasures.
One time Robin and I were watching one of those HGTV shows and someone built a pretty cool looking set of bookshelves. Robin said he could build something like that, only bigger, to fill up our long wall in the big living room. I told him about how I had learned that rooms should have focal points. And I could think of no better focal point for people like us than gigantic beautiful bookshelves filled with treasures. And now we have this!
I've also learned that my favorite house style is gothic. Castles are #2 so long as they have been modernized. But I actually prefer a house that is affordable and conveniently located.
So those are my answers. I might know my mom's answer: Lake Tahoe. I might know my sister's answer: SCA events.
What about you? Does this passage make you think of anything?
P.S. Heh, heh, "tender, velvety smog." That guy can write.
This is the most beautiful place on earth.
There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmire, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio or Rome--there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment. Theologians, sky pilots, astronauts have even felt the appeal of home calling to them from up above, in the cold black outback of interstellar space.
After reading that, I wondered if I have a place like that. I agree with the author that the area around Moab, Utah, and Arches National Monument is gorgeous. I also like lots of northeastern New Mexico, with the multicolored rock against different greys and green-greys of the plant life with the occasional run of hardened black lava. In my part of the world, I like Inks Lake State Park, made of pink granite on which grows multiple kinds of lichens, surrounding a deep blue-green lake. I am fascinated with desert rock and the fact that plants can still make a life there.
But I wouldn't say those places have the appeal of home. Probably my best answer to that is having woods outside my window. When I worked at summer camp, we slept in four-person platform tents with the canvas sides rolled up to let in the breeze. I loved waking up in the morning to the sight of trees everywhere.
Later, I got a similar feeling when I moved in with my old roommate McKath. I got a room in the back with two windows meeting in the corner. I put my bed there where again I could see trees (from the back yard) when I woke up. (Note: you are not supposed to put your bed next to windows because bad guys can just yank you out of bed from outside.)
And I love walking down wooded trails (when I'm wearing insect repellant), so that's probably my answer.
Another approach to the question is to look at what I have learned from moving. I've learned that the first thing I like to do (after unpacking the toilet paper, of course) is to hang up my pictures, even if there's a chance I'll change my mind on where they'll go as I finalize the furniture placement. Without pictures, a place feels cold and sterile to me, the opposite of home.
But really what I love are bookshelves, especially when they are made of unpainted wood and filled with treasures.
One time Robin and I were watching one of those HGTV shows and someone built a pretty cool looking set of bookshelves. Robin said he could build something like that, only bigger, to fill up our long wall in the big living room. I told him about how I had learned that rooms should have focal points. And I could think of no better focal point for people like us than gigantic beautiful bookshelves filled with treasures. And now we have this!
I've also learned that my favorite house style is gothic. Castles are #2 so long as they have been modernized. But I actually prefer a house that is affordable and conveniently located.
So those are my answers. I might know my mom's answer: Lake Tahoe. I might know my sister's answer: SCA events.
What about you? Does this passage make you think of anything?
P.S. Heh, heh, "tender, velvety smog." That guy can write.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2014-03-12 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
on 2014-03-12 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
on 2014-03-12 04:59 am (UTC)That being said - I do have visions of a tropical beach now and then - perhaps it's some primordial part of me that remembers the first few months of my life in Hawaii.
The platform tent thing made me laugh. I spent several summers working at a sleepover camp and it was all nice and idyllic until the attack of the rabid raccoon. Seriously, it was foaming at the mouth and attacking one of the tent posts. We had to evacuate the kids and the camp caretaker had to shoot it, cut off the head and send it to the state health department to confirm that it did indeed have rabies. Sorta takes the romance out of it.
Thanks for letting me know about your blog. I'm not sure this comment will take because it looks a bit funky... but we'll see.
xoxo,
Cat
no subject
on 2014-03-12 11:35 am (UTC)My boyfriend lived in Hawaii for a couple of years as a kid. Then his parents fled the big city (full of drugs!) and lived only in small towns after that. There were still drugs, though, oops!
On camping, there's also the sunburn, poison ivy, and heat rash! We had some snakes, though never a scare as bad as yours with the racoon. Oh, and non-poisonous snakes. And rain and mud. I still like the look of trees, though.