Re Root

This last Friday, I was very pleased to visit a high school classmate whom I had not seen for some thirty-four years.  It was a very good visit, finding out the different courses that life had take us on.  It was interesting to see that the same basic character shone through for both of us, although a bit wiser and more experienced.  I hope we will see more of each other in the future.

I have heard and read many complaints about Facebook.  It is perhaps rightfully derided for many things.  It is commercial and artificial often, constantly changing in confusing ways.  Some people over-share, or have more contact or less contact than you desire.  It's all a matter of perspective, so I'm sure I can be accused of thees things as well.  I have three or four basic audiences (classmates, family, my liberal friends, my theatre pals), and like in Ghostbusters, sometimes the streams cross together in unpleasant and apocalyptic ways.

On the other hand, for this shy guy, it has helped me reconnect with people from my past that would have never happened before in the past.  And for that I am very grateful.

Both of us, Dona and myself, had moved a number of times in our lives.  The concept of where home really was came up.  Like her, many of the places I have lived, I do not fell like I fit in to anymore.  I don't even remember them feeling like home when I was there.  She is hoping to move to a place she has been before, where she has some friends and is closer to family

So, where is home?

It's not Bridgeport, as much as I was raised there and would have some roots.  I have no one from my family that lives there, and I really haven't been there in decades.  The most recent time of significance would have been a reunion 19 years ago.

It's not the other places I have lived, including Cass City, Cartersville, Stone Mountain, Villa Rica and Rockmart..  None of these are places I would go back to.  Nobody from these places, even with facebook, have any contact with me.  I might remember a restaurant or landmark fondly, but that's about it.

Then it struck me.  The cliche is true. Home is where the heart is.

It's where I'm at now.  It's where my family is, Alison and Benjamin, her parents and relatives.  It's where my church family is, the longest and deepest church commitment I have ever made.  It's where my theatre family is, where I have been in many plays and helped make positive contributions to the vitality of community theatre and have finally begun to even make friends that exist even when I'm not currently in a play.  It's where I work and have held a job at the same place for almost 13 years now (previously my record was 5 years).

So the light has gone on in my head.  Blackshear.  It's my home.  I wasn't born here.  God knows the politics here is horrible, and it never snows.  But nevertheless, Blackshear/Waycross, I adopt thee.  I am now your native son.

There's no place like home.

at least until Doug joins Ramya and Greg in California and start having grandbabies.  Then it's a brand new ballgame!