NOTES FROM THE HINTERLAND
THE NOTION OF HOME
By Laurie Meunier Graves
Traveling demands a disproportionate effort, especially when it’s to
places where there is no room service. My ideal vacation consists of sitting
in a chair beneath an umbrella on my patio, reading books of adventures I
would never consider unless I was escaping from something.
—Isabel Allende
I am a homebody. It has taken me years to realize this, to even feel
comfortable admitting it, but as one approaches fifty, certain truths must
be faced.
When I was a young child, spending the night at a friend’s house always
ended the same way: first, I would get sick to my stomach and then it would
get so bad that I would have to go home. As soon as I was in my own bed, the
sick feeling would go away. I was home.
As I grew older, I was able to spend the night at friends’ houses and not
feel sick to my stomach. I was even able to travel, to go to Paris and
London. But for me, coming home is the best part of traveling. Yes, I have
seen wonderful things and have tasted wonderful food, but there’s nothing
like the clutter of your own home to make you feel comfortable. Nowhere
smells like home, where there are always your favorite snacks in the
cupboard, a peg for your bathrobe, and stacks of books waiting to be read.
This, of course, puts me at odds with the larger culture. In general, the
citizens of the United States are as restless as migratory birds in the
spring and fall. From coast to coast, from north to south, people change
jobs, houses, and sometimes even families. It is rare for people to stay in
the place where they were born. In Maine, most of the people I meet and know
have come from somewhere else, “from away” as we call it here. People
introduce themselves with “I’ve lived in Maine since 1981” or “I’ve lived in
Maine since 1991.” I resist the impulse to respond, “I’ve lived in Maine
since 1957, which is when I was born.” Instead, I just smile and nod and
say, “Good for you,” as though they deserve some sort of newcomer’s award
for finally coming to their senses and settling where they belong.
But what, exactly, is home? Is it a structure, a house, an apartment, or even a
yurt? Is it a street, a town, or a state? Is it a country or a planet? Is it
a family, however loosely defined? Is it some sort of territory where you
discover the best places to get doughnuts or chocolate cream pies or fried
clams? Sometimes, the notion of home seems as elusive as “the real Maine,”
which means different things for different people.
Over the years, home has come to mean different things to me. When I was a
young child, it was a tiny ranch-style house tucked in a tight, tough
neighborhood in Waterville, Maine. In those days, children ran free from
dawn to dusk, and it was not always sweetness and light. We punched each
other, threw rocks at each other, and used our plastic jump ropes as whips.
There were no knives or guns—it wasn’t that tough—but at a young age I
learned to fight and, more importantly, to run. The small white ranch, with
its hardwood floors and bay window looking out onto the street, became a
kind of retreat, a place to escape from the other children, who were bigger
and stronger than I was. Home was where I was safe.
When I was eight, we moved to North Vassalboro, to a huge, old farmhouse
with fields and barns and gardens. The neighborhood couldn’t have been more
different than the one in Waterville, and in an instant, I went from being
the neighborhood wimp to being the neighborhood bully. When I became angry,
I slapped, punched, and knocked down, and to my horror, the children in the
new neighborhood snitched on me. This sort of thing was not done in my old
neighborhood, and it was unbelievable to me. It was also unbelievable to my
mother, who had no idea I was such a bully. How could she? She had never
witnessed the incredible fights in the old neighborhood.
But after many lectures from my mother and the incredible patience of the
neighbors, who continued to allow their children to play with me, I calmed
down. Home became not only the farmhouse with its gloriously crooked floors,
grand stairway, and drafty rooms, but also the fields with sweet wild
strawberries where I ran and played and rode ponies. In the winter, there
was skating on the pond and sliding down huge hills. It truly was a
wonderful place to be a child.
But then, of course, came puberty, and it wasn’t so wonderful anymore. In
addition, I became acutely aware of being Franco-American, of having a name
that was hard to pronounce, of really being different from the
culture-at-large. Was I French or was I American? I strained against my
ethnicity, and when I went to a friend’s house two towns away and her father
(who was not Franco-American) told me dumb Frenchman jokes, I just smiled
and squirmed.
For a long time, no place felt like home, not the apartments in which I
lived,, not the places to which I traveled, not even my first house. I
wanted to live in Maine—I knew that—but I had the curious feeling of being
an exile in the state in which I was born. Ironically, this started to
change when I began to write about being Franco-American and discovered that
the Ku Klux Klan had come north to do what they do best—that is, create an
atmosphere of fear, terror, and repression against groups they have pegged
as "other," in this case Franco-Americans. There was a reason why so many
Franco-Americans I knew felt like second-class citizens, and it had nothing
to do with our supposed innate inferiority. It was a clear case of class,
struggle, and power.
Oddly enough, once I realized this, Maine started feeling like home again,
the way it did when I was child. I could embrace the blue skies and the
factories and the dark green woods and the dirty rivers. The oppression and
the stubborn endurance. It was all part of the story, and like all stories
it had its dark side as well as its bright side. I also came to see that
this is not just a Franco-American story; this is a story that is played out
around the world, in different times and different countries.
In some ways, I have come back to where I started. I live in a ranch-style
house with hardwood floors and a bay window. The neighborhood isn’t as
tough, but I still live in an old mill town that has a huge brick factory,
which is, of course, no longer running. When I go for walks and when I ride
my bike, I look at the woods, the lakes, the sky. Afterward, I return to my
modest house with its flower gardens and patio, and it feels like home.
