5/25

I spent the better part of last week at home.

I think.

I don’t own any land or have any children so home for me is more of an ethereal question.

I was at my parent’s house in Greenville finishing up a book on legal marketing I’ve been ghostwriting for the past year. I still refer to that house as home even though I haven’t lived there in 21 years. I’m not sure why I call it that? I didn’t even live there all that long. We moved in when I was 13 and I left five years later. I lived in my apartment in Brooklyn for double that amount of time but I would never walk down the streets of Williamsburg and shout “I’m home!”

The house I lived in the longest was in Greenville, on Pennwood Lane, right off of State Park Road. It was a three bedroom ranch and we lived there during the magical part of my childhood, the time before I was a teenager. The time when my imagination could easily turn my back yard into Wrigley Field and the driveway into the Boston Garden. I still have dreams about that place but we don’t own it so can’t be home, right?

My stuff is in Atlanta so I guess that is technically home but we hate our apartment and things are still in boxes so that doesn’t count. My heart is in Charleston but I don't own anything there and the town is constantly being sold to the highest bidder so that can't be it.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. As I mentioned in an earlier post one of the side effects of my cancer has been a longing to plan roots which as manifested itself in a love of Zillow and a hatred of HGTV. Plus now that my grandmother is gone my family has inherited her house, a house that has been in my family for 200 years. My mother was born in what is now the dining room. My grandfather and grandmother both died there. The ghosts of my family are in every room. To hear my mother talk about going through her things and to see her try and figure out what to do with the farm has made me realize that home is more than a place…it’s a responsibility as well.

And my biggest responsibility right now is beat this disease. Because if I don’t all those other questions are moot points. So for the next little bit, home is where my hospital is. And my hospital is here. At Emory. In Atlanta.

Guess I should unpack a few boxes.