We just got back from Boston, and I have nothing but fantastic things to say. The city is beautiful, from the subways underground up to the streets, and all the way up to the 27th floor hotel room that looked out over the rooftop decks and gardens. During an evening thunderstorm, Rachel and I watched the lightning flash through the clouds and down into the sky over the lights in buildings. We had great food and met awesome people. I'm sure we hoped to meet nice people, but really, I think everyone we met was beyond any expectations I may have had - we even learned about the Great Molasses Flood during an impromptu historical tour from a realtor. The only exceptions were the two people we met from New York, and both of them were real bastards.
27 June 2007
bostonia
09 June 2007
05 June 2007
Comings & Goings
This weekend, Rachel and I drove down to Grants Pass to visit her parents. In the car, both going and returning, we talked about where we've lived and where our parents have lived. She again pointed out how weird it is that I don't know where my parents are from. I know, it probably seems weird, but I don't. I love my parents, and I'm very close to them. Hell, I realize every day that I'm turning into my father. The point is that I know my parents; I know their personalities, their characters, what makes them laugh and smile, and what makes them angry and frown. For some reason it's just not that weird that I don't know where they were born or where exactly they grew up.
This, of course, might explain why I feel like I don't really have a place I would call home. I've written stories about the house in Hawaii where I spent the first nine years of my life in, but, as the aforementioned story says, the house has been gated off with a tacky display of black bars and failed ornamentation. The other house I grew up in, just north of Seattle, holds almost no hints of my having once lived there. My old bedroom has been converted into a guest bedroom, and only at night, with all the lights off and the room pitch-black, do the final remnants of my occupation reveal themselves: glow in the dark star stickers. Since moving out of that house, I've lived in a crappy apartment in Seattle, my gramma's house in Hawaii (which, the land it sits on holds another strange treasure chest of stories), an old, red-bricked house in Seattle, a crappy apartment in Oregon, and the current not-as-crappy apartment in Oregon. In a few months I'll be venturing out to Boston, adding another location to my list of wanderings. I'm not sure I'll call that home.
Because of all this, I feel devoid of any real sense of history. My mother's parents came from the Philippines during their lifetime, and my father's family came from Ireland to Canada 200-some odd years ago. All I really know about my mother's family is that her dad loved Budweiser and died when I was too young to even realize that he was sick but not young enough that he wouldn't sneak me the occasional taste of his beer. Oh, and he had the kind of smile that really made you feel the happiness behind it. Her mother didn't like me because I'm half Caucasian. My dad's mother died when I was two or three or something, and his dad had dementia or alzheimer's so bad he forgot who I was. He did remember my mom, surprisingly, yet he never forgot to ask her how she managed such a dark and even tan. Oh, and when his family came over from Ireland, they tried to cross the great lakes and a great many of them drowned. Oh, and apparently, somewhere down the line, some males named Homer, which was apparently a common name in his lineage, was put in some sort of crazy house but still managed to procreate. Yes, I'm proud.
That's a sort of history, I guess, but I'm not sure where I'm left or where I'm going.
This, of course, might explain why I feel like I don't really have a place I would call home. I've written stories about the house in Hawaii where I spent the first nine years of my life in, but, as the aforementioned story says, the house has been gated off with a tacky display of black bars and failed ornamentation. The other house I grew up in, just north of Seattle, holds almost no hints of my having once lived there. My old bedroom has been converted into a guest bedroom, and only at night, with all the lights off and the room pitch-black, do the final remnants of my occupation reveal themselves: glow in the dark star stickers. Since moving out of that house, I've lived in a crappy apartment in Seattle, my gramma's house in Hawaii (which, the land it sits on holds another strange treasure chest of stories), an old, red-bricked house in Seattle, a crappy apartment in Oregon, and the current not-as-crappy apartment in Oregon. In a few months I'll be venturing out to Boston, adding another location to my list of wanderings. I'm not sure I'll call that home.
Because of all this, I feel devoid of any real sense of history. My mother's parents came from the Philippines during their lifetime, and my father's family came from Ireland to Canada 200-some odd years ago. All I really know about my mother's family is that her dad loved Budweiser and died when I was too young to even realize that he was sick but not young enough that he wouldn't sneak me the occasional taste of his beer. Oh, and he had the kind of smile that really made you feel the happiness behind it. Her mother didn't like me because I'm half Caucasian. My dad's mother died when I was two or three or something, and his dad had dementia or alzheimer's so bad he forgot who I was. He did remember my mom, surprisingly, yet he never forgot to ask her how she managed such a dark and even tan. Oh, and when his family came over from Ireland, they tried to cross the great lakes and a great many of them drowned. Oh, and apparently, somewhere down the line, some males named Homer, which was apparently a common name in his lineage, was put in some sort of crazy house but still managed to procreate. Yes, I'm proud.
That's a sort of history, I guess, but I'm not sure where I'm left or where I'm going.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
