Among the English language's arsenal of hackneyed clichés is the much used "you can't go home again." Now, a week after I managed to muscle my way back into the United States with only a color copy of my passport and my driver's license, I'm not entirely sure I agree.
It is true that home, and my interaction with it, is different from when I boarded my flight to Paris five months ago. I now supress the urge to mutter "pardon" after bumping into people. Bloomberg has apparently purchased the entire inventory of cheap lawn chairs from every Duane Reade in the city and has placed them haphazardly throughout Times Square. I'm still finding empty places in my house where the furniture has been removed and carted out to the Hampton house. But despite the little changes, the constants that made me so attached to home have remained.
I am undoubtedly a radically different person, but I still find comfort in the concept of home: the lingering air of nostalgia, the unwavering presence of family, the general "some things never change" mentality. On a superficial level, "you can't go home again" holds true. Nothing is static, and even if you return to a location that has remained by and large the same, your perception of it, altered by all that you've experienced elsewhere, will be very different. But at its core, home remains a place to which you can always return.
This is the last snippet of profundity for this blog, but I'll be continuing to chronicle my inner monologue at http://ngulotta.blogspot.com
À bientôt!
Friday, June 12, 2009
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