JOHN SCHERBER
WHERE IS HOME?
Where is
home? I know it’s out there somewhere.
Here in San
Miguel I recently attended a talk by Richard Blanco, the poet who read at
President Obama’s second inaugural, and again for the recent reopening of the
U.S. Embassy in Havana. As the openly gay son of Cuban parents, born in Spain
and raised in Miami, he has sufficient reason to be asking this question too,
perhaps more than most of us. It is no surprise that he feels a relaxed and supportive
welcome in this town that shelters eight or ten thousand expats, also severed to
some degree from their origins as a matter of choice.
Blanco has
resolved his search in a series of brilliant poems and in a book on his
childhood in South Beach. While his answers are uniquely his own, his questions
will stimulate another series from expats here and elsewhere. Let me offer a
few of my own answers:
Home may be
where the heart is, but it’s also where the snow isn’t. I’m writing this in the middle of September, a time, when
back in Minnesota, we were busy raking leaves. We were checking the insulation
in the attic. We were topping off the antifreeze in the car and making a note
to use a more lightweight variety of oil at the next change. In spending 58
years there I always knew I had given over too much of my life to the frigid
burden of snow boots and down jackets, but in the long demanding grip of jobs,
family ties, and friendships, it was hard to find a method of release. Living
in México now, I have seen how escape is accomplished by the pros––with tunnels
and bribery, a means we never thought of up north.
Home is where
you can stop being yourself, that is, the self you thought you needed to be, the
one you had to be to keep your career
track open, to keep your kids in check and on the way to being good citizens of
a country you were no longer sure you wanted to live in yourself.
México has a more
relaxed system of identity that does not question your ability, even your right
to be somewhat different from the photo on your driver’s license––if you even
have one. It does not ask what you formerly did for a living. If it asks
anything at all, it’s what you are doing today. It does not demand to see your
credentials. You are, after all, alive and here even without them. Nothing more
is required.
Home is not
needing to be trendy. Even if you weren’t aware of needing to feel trendy
before, you will feel even less so here. Being cutting edge is only understood
in reference to a machete, or to the man who makes the rounds of the neighborhoods
on his bicycle, blowing a harsh whistle, ready to grind your expensive German
cutlery to a fine and rapidly vanishing edge for ten pesos. (today, sixty cents
U.S.) After six visits you will be carving your roast with a very pricy set of icepicks.
Home is where
not everything works. I wonder if this is any different? It certainly differs
in what doesn’t work and what does. It works, for example, to pay five dollars
a month here for water that we can’t drink, when before in Edina, Minnesota, we
paid ninety-nine dollars a month for water we also couldn’t drink (for
different reasons––it tasted vile), but which came with a nice bi-monthly color
brochure that told us how good it was. We used to keep that piece of propaganda
on top of the five-gallon water bottle in our kitchen dispenser. At least we
felt better about it. Here in México we don’t feel as good when things don’t
work, but we know we’re getting a better deal on failure. That’s worth
something.
Here the power
goes out just long enough to require us to reset all the clocks. Everything you
buy now has a clock on it that needs to be reset. There is no reason for this.
In Minnesota we lived in a wooded neighborhood (Indian Hills) where the power
lines had naïvely been run through the trees. Every time a high wind came
through the lines went down as dead branches fell on them. One weekend in May
we had houseguests for three days and our power was out the entire time. I did
a run to Starbucks every morning, cursing.
In the eighties
there was a movie I never saw called Stop
Making Sense, featuring The Talking Heads. The irreverent perspective of its
title has stayed with me. Since the turnout didn’t demand a sequel, I believe
the entire crew drifted down here and infiltrated the government after shooting
ended, where they remain firmly in control today. Their fine hand can also be
observed in all the utility companies.
These are
superficial signs of home. Richard Blanco was talking more deeply about
identity and how it plugs into our sense of place and family. After eight years
as a willing exile I think home is a portable unit, self-contained, and in this
country, run by solar energy. We love the sun. We need the sun, because central
heating rarely penetrates this far south.
Home is a shell
that protects us from inclement weather, but more importantly, it harbors our
ambitions, supports our dreams, and nurses our hopes as creative people living
atypical lives among kindly strangers. It travels well, because as compact as
it is, it still provides sufficient room for all of our essentials, even if we
prefer to get our jeans in Laredo.
At the heart of
this durable shell is our identity, which is the essence of home. It is not the
title we have, or what we own, or the image we wish to project; but what we do
every day of our lives. That defines us as the individuals we are. And we are all
individuals before we are Americans, women or men, adults or children,
Catholics or Moslems, Trumpians or Hillarians.
Home is where
we are, not what we left behind.
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