Leaving for Home

Tomorrow I leave for a 2-week trip (part business, part pleasure). I'm excited by the prospect of getting to Azerbaijan and delighted that I'll be getting back to Istanbul, which is one of my favorite cities in the entire world.

So right now I should be all packed and bubbling over with anticipation. But I'm not. Instead, I'm full of dread. I'm generally like this before a big trip.

My dogs, Diamond and Diego, will be going to their babysitter's house for the two weeks. They're leaving tonight. In fact, I'm waiting for Andrea (the babysitter) to appear any minute now.

Saying goodbye to my two bulldogs is incredibly difficult for me. I usually cry, especially when Diamond (the 6-year old) turns from Andrea and attempts to come back to the house, certain in the knowledge that her rightful spot is with me. She looks at me with those beautiful, soulful brown eyes and she seeks the reassurance: that I will be back, that I will not forget her, that I will not abandon her, that I will not replace her.

(For his part, Diego, the puppy, trots along happily, willing to go along with the program no matter what it is. He's the kid I always pretended to be, but never really was, not on the inside.)

With a lump in my throat as I write this tonight, I think about the idea of Home. What is home? Where is home?

For the first 18 years of my life, Home was West Hartford, Connecticut. Home was my parents and my sisters and our dog. We lived in the same house for the entire time; my parents never moved. We ate dinner in our dining room (my mother was very proud of that).

Then I went to college and, later, graduate school. And still West Hartford was home. Still that same house on King Philip Drive: white, with aluminum siding and black shutters. A red door.

Then my father got sick. Home was that same house but with some modifications. Now we had dialysis equipment in the guest bedroom and bags of peritoneal solution in the pink bathroom my sisters and I had shared growing up. There was a funny, sweet, sickly smell in certain parts of the house -- the odor of disease, that faint whiff of something medicinal and antiseptic.

My father died in December 1998. My mother remained in that same house. I had moved to London by then and, still, when I thought about "going Home" it was that house that I imagined. My father's ghost graced us, a funny spirit who was loved and remembered and missed. Always.

And then my mother started getting lost driving to a friend's house. She bought fava beans at the store when I'd asked her for a vanilla bean. She didn't always remember to shower. She bought food and shoved it -- literally, shoved it -- into the already crammed freezer. She stopped cooking and lived on prepared egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches. This was a woman who had once worked her way through a significant portion (the bread and poultry sections, anyway) of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I came and went, back and forth from London to West Hartford. And my house -- and all that it represented, all that it meant -- was still there. Yes, things had changed. Yes, it was different. But I would lie there in my twin bed in my yellow bedroom and I would feel anchored. Connected. I belonged to a story and that story started with Home.

Summer 2004. My mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She's unable to draw a clock. She has no idea what decade we're in. She can't remember the name of the president. When reminded, however, she is quick to tell the gerontologist, "I hate Bush. He's an asshole." The doctor recommends assisted living.

My sisters were enthusiastic; I was less so. I thought we should look at nurses and aides and even 'round the clock care. "Mom's going to want to be in West Hartford," I argued. "This has been her Home for over 65 years." But in the end it just wasn't practical. None of us had settled anywhere near West Hartford and most of my mother's friends wanted nothing to do with her anymore. "She shows up early for bridge games and it's very annoying," we were told. She had become a nuisance. One friend "thoughtfully" suggested we try and get my mother a volunteer job shelving books at the library. Subtext for please get her out of my life; she's frightening me.

In October 2005, we moved my mother to an assisted living community here in New Hampshire. And I made the decision to return to the States and to move to New Hampshire, as well. I wanted to help my sister Betsy. I wanted to be here to bear witness to my mother's final journey. I say this but I'm not sure that's all there is to it. I think I also wanted to find Home again and I suspect I needed to step out of the life I was living in order to so.

So is New Hampshire now my home? I don't think so but I don't know.

I can't say that I love my life here. I work for myself and I'm alone nearly all day -- no meetings, no lunches, no drinks after work, nothing. I find it lonely. And I find it hard. I miss meeting people from all over the world. That doesn't happen all that often here. I find it boring and I miss theater and foreign films and public transit. I really do.

And yet.

Now that my mother has died and her journey is complete I could move back to New York. Or back to London. Or just about anyplace I want. And something stops me. I'm starting to believe that I'm not looking for a new address or a change of zip code. What I want -- and what I've wanted all along, ever since I lost West Hartford and lost my childhood to time -- is Home.

Now I know that when I left London, I left for Home.

I haven't found what it is I'm looking for yet. I don't think I will find it. No, what I think is that I will create it. I will build my Home, not find it. Building a Home is a metaphor for building a life and living it. Really living it.

I look down at Diamond and Diego and I know why it hurts so much to leave them. It hurts because they are part of the Home I am building -- the life I am making -- and I am going to miss them very, very much. I will come back full of enthusiasm for and stories about Azerbaijan and Turkey. Of course. And I will be thrilled that I had this opportunity.

When I land at Logan on 10 July, I can't say that I'll feel like I'm Home. No, I don't think I will feel that way. But, here's a starting point: when Andrea (the babysitter) brings the "kids" back later that day, the circle will feel more complete than it did without them. That is connection. And that is the starting point for the place I call Home.