noelleprice (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} noelleprice) wrote,@ 2006-12-25 15:08:00 |
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I Am _from_ Somewhere
Words I never thought I'd hear myself think:
"Thank God I have a stop-over in Houston."
Turns out there are places in the world that are largely devoid of any inescapable evidence of destruction and tragedy. You probably knew this already, but for me it's just sinking in. I'm glad I'm getting the opportunity to adjust to the existence of life outside the Hurricane Haunt before the more significant event of my return to California, whose very familiarity I can't help but think is going to feel pretty strange.
I've been giving my Californian origins some fairly serious thought lately. Much as I like to think of myself as at least something of a world traveler, this is the longest I've been outside the confines of my home state by a factor of 4, which apparently is just long enough out of that water I grew up swimming in for this fish to be able to understand that the water is actually contained in a pool of some kind. Which has edges, an inside and an outside, and a name of its own. I am reasonably sure that I have used the word "California" in conversation more in the last 5 months than in the rest of my life put together. I guess that's what happens when you leave somewhere. It suddenly makes more sense to talk about it as a whole and discrete entity rather than merely discussing various aspects, events and details as one does in the course of everyday intrastate interactions.
A couple months ago, I had a particularly fantastic group of volunteers working with me on a house in LaCombe in the finish stages. Out of this universally stellar group, there were four folks in particular, two couples, who I found it instantly easy to relate to. Their style of humor, outlook on life, frustrations, passions and politics all just made immediate sense to me. One of the couples was from small-town Washington, but I later came to learn that both husband and wife grew up in California. The other couple I found out was from LA, though if not for some complicated external circumstances, it seems they'd rather move to Kentucky. It dawned on me that perhaps I had found my "people"... a group I think I'll call the Ambivalently Californian. There is no doubt that my upbringing in California has left a deep imprint on me. You can't spend (conservatively) 97% of your life somewhere and not be shaped by it in innumerable ways, many of which by definition you're unlikely to be aware of. And let it be said that there is so much about California that I love. The beaches, the mountains, the informality, the burritos... the list goes on. And all of that pales in comparison to the relationships with friends and family that grew up out of that soil. But any Californian also knows well the price... the overpopulation, the ever-increasing and life-inhibiting expense. And in Southern California in particular, I would add to the list a materialism that seems at least a shade over the national average, and an obsession with physical appearance and apparent fear and denial of aging and mortality that may well top the charts. But it is where I'm from, and for all I know it may also be where I end up, and those deep roots together with my varying levels of discomfort with them might well be fairly called my cultural background.
The same week as I met my new Californian friends, another volunteer who currently lives in Texas and who I think was originally either from the Northeast or the Midwest called me out for what he said was a dead give-away of my origins. I was giving him directions that started with "take the 10 east..." Here he smiled and said, "You just told me where you're from." Apparently nobody but us puts the "the" in front of the interstate number. For a moment, I had the instinct to change this pattern of speech, perhaps for clarity, but more, I suspect, to blend in. But then I thought about how one of the things I love most about this crazy state of Louisiana and the even nuttier town of New Orleans is its celebration of all its local peculiarities. If calling it "the 10" happens to be what I've got to bring to the table in terms of local color, so be it. An Ambivalent Californian I am, an Ambivalent Californian I shall be, wherever I end up. Whether that's Louisiana, Colorado, Oregon, or parts unknown.
Or even California.
Words I never thought I'd hear myself think:
"Thank God I have a stop-over in Houston."
Turns out there are places in the world that are largely devoid of any inescapable evidence of destruction and tragedy. You probably knew this already, but for me it's just sinking in. I'm glad I'm getting the opportunity to adjust to the existence of life outside the Hurricane Haunt before the more significant event of my return to California, whose very familiarity I can't help but think is going to feel pretty strange.
I've been giving my Californian origins some fairly serious thought lately. Much as I like to think of myself as at least something of a world traveler, this is the longest I've been outside the confines of my home state by a factor of 4, which apparently is just long enough out of that water I grew up swimming in for this fish to be able to understand that the water is actually contained in a pool of some kind. Which has edges, an inside and an outside, and a name of its own. I am reasonably sure that I have used the word "California" in conversation more in the last 5 months than in the rest of my life put together. I guess that's what happens when you leave somewhere. It suddenly makes more sense to talk about it as a whole and discrete entity rather than merely discussing various aspects, events and details as one does in the course of everyday intrastate interactions.
A couple months ago, I had a particularly fantastic group of volunteers working with me on a house in LaCombe in the finish stages. Out of this universally stellar group, there were four folks in particular, two couples, who I found it instantly easy to relate to. Their style of humor, outlook on life, frustrations, passions and politics all just made immediate sense to me. One of the couples was from small-town Washington, but I later came to learn that both husband and wife grew up in California. The other couple I found out was from LA, though if not for some complicated external circumstances, it seems they'd rather move to Kentucky. It dawned on me that perhaps I had found my "people"... a group I think I'll call the Ambivalently Californian. There is no doubt that my upbringing in California has left a deep imprint on me. You can't spend (conservatively) 97% of your life somewhere and not be shaped by it in innumerable ways, many of which by definition you're unlikely to be aware of. And let it be said that there is so much about California that I love. The beaches, the mountains, the informality, the burritos... the list goes on. And all of that pales in comparison to the relationships with friends and family that grew up out of that soil. But any Californian also knows well the price... the overpopulation, the ever-increasing and life-inhibiting expense. And in Southern California in particular, I would add to the list a materialism that seems at least a shade over the national average, and an obsession with physical appearance and apparent fear and denial of aging and mortality that may well top the charts. But it is where I'm from, and for all I know it may also be where I end up, and those deep roots together with my varying levels of discomfort with them might well be fairly called my cultural background.
The same week as I met my new Californian friends, another volunteer who currently lives in Texas and who I think was originally either from the Northeast or the Midwest called me out for what he said was a dead give-away of my origins. I was giving him directions that started with "take the 10 east..." Here he smiled and said, "You just told me where you're from." Apparently nobody but us puts the "the" in front of the interstate number. For a moment, I had the instinct to change this pattern of speech, perhaps for clarity, but more, I suspect, to blend in. But then I thought about how one of the things I love most about this crazy state of Louisiana and the even nuttier town of New Orleans is its celebration of all its local peculiarities. If calling it "the 10" happens to be what I've got to bring to the table in terms of local color, so be it. An Ambivalent Californian I am, an Ambivalent Californian I shall be, wherever I end up. Whether that's Louisiana, Colorado, Oregon, or parts unknown.
Or even California.
