A Sense of Place / Belonging: Need Your Thoughts

[catherine]

So, as you may know, I'm working on a book with a roadmap for making a move away from the current culture and toward a better, saner life.

I'm on the 5th of 9 steps now... and it has to do with finding where you belong, geographically.

I know that many of you have moved over the last decade: I'm thinking specifically of pinkytoe, frugal-one, iris lilies, Tybee but everyone has at one point in teir lives made a move and either felt like they belonged, or felt like a fish out of water.

Can you please share your experiences using the following prompts:

1) Describe a time when you said to yourself, "This is where I belong." What did that feel like? What emotion was it stirring up for you? What was it based on? History? Values? Sense memory? Aesthetics? Energy?

2) The opposite: What has made you feel that you didn't belong in a particular place? Describe the place and why you felt that way.

3) How did you resolve that feeling? Or, how did you at least adapt to it? Do you feel that adaptation is sustainable?

4) If you have moved from a place you didn't feel you belonged in, what were you looking for? What is your "Kansas" (vs. Oz)?

5) In the scheme of things, how important is it to you to "get back to where you once belonged"? Why? If you haven't done it yet, what are your plans for that? If you have returned to a place you feel you belong in, what has been the benefit of that? How is your life different? Please describe the feelings.

Please feel free to comment here, or DM me.

[Rogar]

Catherine, I don't especially want to pre-suppose what you would enjoy, but I sometimes come back to John O'Donohue's interview with Krista Tippet from a few years ago. "The Inner Landscape of Beauty". It some what related to your questions, but also how we construct out own landscapes. It's an hour long, but I find it delightful. I may have to think more, as it's a topic I think about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqalrRkYP14

[Tybee]

Catherine, that's a great series of questions. Will have to give it a lot of thought before I could give good answer/answers. Will look with great interest on what others say.

[happystuff]

Actually, I'm on the search for that geographic place! This is our "starter home" - 34 years later! LOL. Since I/we plan on downsizing after retirement, I've actually started looking now and am finding it quite challenging. I know what I want and my hope is to transform where ever we land into our "home". I know that doesn't answer your questions, but I'll have to wait to land somewhere before I have the experiences to reply.

Good luck!

[early morning]

Catherine - those are very interesting questions. I've never thought all that much about belonging/not belonging. I am perhaps closer to hermit material, I exist in the outside world, but I think I do most of my living (belonging?) inside my head. I do wonder if that's because I'm not where I belong, or because belonging is a construct I'm not in tune with? I'm not unhappy, overall - and I have to wonder that if I found "my" community - would I engage with it? Much for me to think about here. No help to you, sorry.... Rogar, that video sounds interesting. If I can get a speaker hooked up to my computer, I'll give it a listen.

[catherine]

Rogar, I used John O'Donohue's book, Beauty, for my chapter on "Beauty Is A Fundamental Need." I also listened to an interview between him and Krista Tippet, interestingly enough... was it you that suggested it in an earlier thread?? Is this interview the same one I listened to? I'll check it out. Anyway, I found a lot of inspiration in his book and in the interview.

It made me wish I hadn't donated my copy of Anam Cara to the lbirary when I left NJ.

[pinkytoe]

Finding home is a constant source of misery for me though I try to think it away by saying planet Earth is my home. As long as I can grow things, I am reasonably content.We moved to Colorado seven years ago as it was my lifelong dream to be here but I do not feel at home here anymore. The family I had in this state has grown old, died and or moved away since. The friend connections I made prior to Covid seem to have dissolved. Folks here are more reserved that I am used to or maybe it's that way everywhere now. I spend too much time thinking about going back to Tx where grandchildren live but there are so many things I dislike about the state now- weather, politics etc. I suppose since I too am growing old that it makes sense to return to the family I have left. Putting it off just makes it harder.

[iris lilies]

The place where I felt at most home was our city neighborhood where we lived for 30+ years. It was the architecture, the gardens, and then the social fabric that provided a full life. I was career oriented and by the time I had worked at my job for 10 years I knew it was either time to leave or I would be staying there the rest of my career. I chose to stay there the rest of my career not because the job was so great But because everything about our life in our neighborhood was just right.

I need to be surrounded by handsome visuals that make me happy. But I also have a slight sense of adventure, so I’m not married to staying in one place all my life. For both of us, DH and me, we are very home centered and like creating nests but both of us are open to moving.

Decades ago, I spent some time in southern New Mexico. I found the desert absolutely depressing in its brown dryness. The mountains surrounding it didn’t make up for brownness. I loved the historic district of that town because the architecture was charming and interesting, and so many of those houses had green lawns. Well, as green as they could get around there. And trees, real trees Of an appreciable height.

When I went back to visit recently, I had exactly the same reaction to the surrounding desert. And had the same reaction to the historic part of town. There was such visual charm and elegance in the historic district and it was surrounded by depressing topography. If I could’ve lived in that part of town without ever going elsewhere, I would’ve been content, but that of course is not realistic.

I left for mainly a job opportunity, but I would’ve left anyway eventually since I craved green surroundings. One of my friends said “oh you didn’t love your boyfriend enough that’s why you left” but I would never choose people over topography. I guess that makes me not a loving person? Haha. I don’t know, but I know what I like and I am glad that DH is not stuck on living in one part of the country.

We both could easily move back to Iowa. We might even at this stage of life be tempted to move clear across the country to the PNW where gardening is great (but we won”t.) if the winters here in Hermann, MO were bad we could go south for the winter and enjoy that, but winters are not bad really.

[catherine]

Thanks, IL. I love "I would never choose people over topography"--haha! But it does speak to the importance of place!!! My DD is miserable at the moment because she loves her husband but hates the house. That's why I think this is an important topic. I do think place sometimes trumps relationships--it could be that important to be in the place you feel you belong.

I've been lucky to have liked every place I've lived in, but it's because I had to like it before I went there. Campus tours were important to me, surrounding architecture was important, and yes, greenery, was important to me. My memories factor into my preferences as well. Like music, if I'm in a certain place that just brings me back to another place I've loved, I'm happier there. I booked an apartment in Ocean Grove because on that particular day, the breeze was blowing the salty ocean air my way and it reminded me of Madison. Interestingly enough, I never smelled the ocean while I was living there. It must have been some kind of sign at the time.

[iris lilies]

Well, I think of myself as cat-like. I like my home and my territory once it is established. I am less concerned about who I share it with. Haha.

Dogs can be like cats.tho.,
One of our dogs was a complete home body. I knew if she ever disappeared it would be because someone picked her up and absconded with her, she would not leave voluntarily. She didn’t like going away in the car. She would have been fine to see us, her family, leave and another family move in to her house as long as they were kind to her and did not upset her her routine.

[Rogar]

Rogar, I used John O'Donohue's book, Beauty, for my chapter on "Beauty Is A Fundamental Need." I also listened to an interview between him and Krista Tippet, interestingly enough... was it you that suggested it in an earlier thread?? Is this interview the same one I listened to? I'll check it out. Anyway, I found a lot of inspiration in his book and in the interview.

It made me wish I hadn't donated my copy of Anam Cara to the lbirary when I left NJ.

Apologies if it was a re run. It's a favorite I come back to and may have forgotten I mentioned it. I've read a couple of his books, but they are a little dense. I think in context, it's not as much where we live, but how we perceive it. In the least, I did enjoy hearing his voice again today.

I think part of a sense of place is knowing the history of the land and culture. I live where, until the post war building boom, was a truck farm for vegetables. There is a park a couple of blocks away that bears the name of one of the original farmers, and one can hunt up an old photo from a historical society showing him with his farm implements and just a building or two. At one time I dated a grand daughter or great grand daughter of the family. Before that there are some references of Arapaho camps and every performance of the local theater they start with a reminder of the Native Americans whose land we now live on. I belong to the historical society of my birthplace and their monthly publication has stories of not just the pioneers, but some of the old established businesses and the families who have owned them or the characters of the neighborhoods back when.

Colorado has been a popular place for people to move to. I have good friends who came here in the 1970's or so because they thought it was a giant playground for recreation, which is true, but has little to do with a sense of place. Although now, they've climbed most of the "14ers" and traveled to the smaller towns and out of the way places and I think their sense of place is in the beauty of the landscape. I lived in a small town in the mountains for about a year. Tourists would come in the summer time but the winters were miserable. I never really got a sense of place for it having a large temporary population of tourists in the summer and long winters. The locals did have a very strong heritage in mining and some were third generation hard rock miners. Unfortunately at some collapse of metals a decade or two ago, it's now t-short shops and cafes, but I think the locals still have some pride in their heritage as well as the new comers. I have another friend who is from Iowa, but a geologist who can name and give a history of about every rock formation you would encounter.

There are young people who have moved here for work or it being a trendy place and live in high rises downtown and maybe downhill ski on winter weekends. I have wondered about any sense of place they might have. Just living in a place with beautiful landscapes near by doesn't qualify. I did a quick google search and a line that came up was, "You can't know who you are until you know where you are".

[iris lilies]

Apologies if it was a re run. It's a favorite I come back to and may have forgotten I mentioned it. I've read a couple of his books, but they are a little dense. I think in context, it's not as much where we live, but how we perceive it. In the least, I did enjoy hearing his voice again today.

I think part of a sense of place is knowing the history of the land and culture. I live where, until the post war building boom, was a truck farm for vegetables. There is a park a couple of blocks away that bears the name of one of the original farmers, and one can hunt up an old photo from a historical society showing him with his farm implements and just a building or two. At one time I dated a grand daughter or great grand daughter of the family. Before that there are some references of Arapaho camps and every performance of the local theater they start with a reminder of the Native Americans whose land we now live on. I belong to the historical society of my birthplace and their monthly publication has stories of not just the pioneers, but some of the old established businesses and the families who have owned them or the characters of the neighborhoods back when.

Colorado has been a popular place for people to move to. I have good friends who came here in the 1970's or so because they thought it was a giant playground for recreation, which is true, but has little to do with a sense of place. Although now, they've climbed most of the "14ers" and traveled to the smaller towns and out of the way places and I think their sense of place is in the beauty of the landscape. I lived in a small town in the mountains for about a year. Tourists would come in the summer time but the winters were miserable. I never really got a sense of place for it having a large temporary population of tourists in the summer and long winters. The locals did have a very strong heritage in mining and some were third generation hard rock miners. Unfortunately at some collapse of metals a decade or two ago, it's now t-short shops and cafes, but I think the locals still have some pride in their heritage as well as the new comers. I have another friend who is from Iowa, but a geologist who can name and give a history of about every rock formation you would encounter.

There are young people who have moved here for work or it being a trendy place and live in high rises downtown and maybe downhill ski on winter weekends. I have wondered about any sense of place they might have. Just living in a place with beautiful landscapes near by doesn't qualify. I did a quick google search and a line that came up was, "You can't know who you are until you know where you are".

I remember when it seemed like everyone in Iowa who was moving away went to Colorado. That was the 1970’s. I do not know of anyone in recent decades to do that.

You mention the history of a place. That is one reason I prefer Missouri to my home state of Iowa. The history seems more interesting, to me anyway. Just last week I heard a tale of Confederate soldiers invading a homestead in
Hermann. That Civil War conflict played out here, a state that supported
union army but also the other one sorta. A strange tension.

Iowa didn’t have that kind of conflict and Central Iowa is just plain boring white-bread flatlands (although the soil is superb!)

[pinkytoe]

Thinking more about this...my sense of place comes from childhood memories on the other side of the Continental Divide. The place where we visited grandparents in the summer, explored the mountains and old mining towns that my mother grew up in...the towns my ancestors helped establish and where those of that generation are buried as well as my mother and little brother. Once mountains and memories are etched into your soul, it is hard to let them go. Funny Iris should mention pets. I am certain my old Siamese cat detests the cold here and dreams of his green leafy environment back in Texas - mosquitos and all. The first time he encountered walking through snow here was very comical.

[sweetana3]

So, as you may know, I'm working on a book with a roadmap for making a move away from the current culture and toward a better, saner life.

I'm on the 5th of 9 steps now... and it has to do with finding where you belong, geographically.

I know that many of you have moved over the last decade: I'm thinking specifically of pinkytoe, frugal-one, iris lilies, Tybee but everyone has at one point in teir lives made a move and either felt like they belonged, or felt like a fish out of water.

Can you please share your experiences using the following prompts:

1) Describe a time when you said to yourself, "This is where I belong." What did that feel like? What emotion was it stirring up for you? What was it based on? History? Values? Sense memory? Aesthetics? Energy?

2) The opposite: What has made you feel that you didn't belong in a particular place? Describe the place and why you felt that way.

3) How did you resolve that feeling? Or, how did you at least adapt to it? Do you feel that adaptation is sustainable?

4) If you have moved from a place you didn't feel you belonged in, what were you looking for? What is your "Kansas" (vs. Oz)?

5) In the scheme of things, how important is it to you to "get back to where you once belonged"? Why? If you haven't done it yet, what are your plans for that? If you have returned to a place you feel you belong in, what has been the benefit of that? How is your life different? Please describe the feelings.

Please feel free to comment here, or DM me.

I was raised in Alaska (from 6months). It will ALWAYS be where I consider home. The views, the weather changes, the simplicity all call me back. But my hubby says I remember with rose colored glasses. Even now at 70, a picture brings back so many wonderful memories. We would probably still be there if the job issue did not happen in 1977. Sadly, it is not the state for a retired person with Alaska's significantly reduced Medicare options.

We have been in IN for over 40 years. Tried NC for 3 years. I liked the state of NC but the suburbs killed me. had just been accepted into a new career program when my husband's company moved us back to IN. A totally car based culture is, for me, intolerable. Even in AK before we moved, I walked over a mile every work day and took the bus to get to work regardless of the weather. IN now is "comfortable". We live right downtown and know where to access services, how and when to attend events, how to avoid issues like traffic or dangerous area, where senior housing can be found, etc. As I said "comfortable".

It was good to have the ability to "try" a new state. NC showed us that nowhere is perfect. I am much more satisfied to stay in IN after having that time in NC and also having traveled to many other states.

[Rogar]

You mention the history of a place. That is one reason I prefer Missouri to my home state of Iowa. The history seems more interesting, to me anyway. Just last week I heard a tale of Confederate soldiers invading a homestead in
Hermann. That Civil War conflict played out here, a state that supported
union army but also the other one sorta. A strange tension.

I remember you are a fan of the Detectorists. Maybe it's common knowledge, but in my utube time sink I discovered there are many detectorists here in the states that search old farmsteads and battlegrounds. They find a of of buttons and bullets. They probably hope for the holy grail, but seem to get excited about a crusted over old penny or dime. That's sort of a sense of place. A detectorist quote I ran across not long ago was, it's not the objects we dig up, but the stories they uncover.

[LDAHL]

My journey through life has been largely unburdened by a strong aesthetic sense. Where circumstances have permitted, I’ve chosen places to live the same way I’ve chosen clothing or cars. I look at cost, comfort and utility. I don’t get much from the beauty or quaintness of my surroundings, especially after the first few months. I figure if you’ve seen one mountain or ocean, you’ve seen them all. Travel leaves me cold for much the same reason.

I have lived in or around Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, rural Central Wisconsin, Green Bay and a small city on the shore of Lake Michigan. Now that work is no longer a constraint, we have settled on the small city. For one thing, the cost of living is much more reasonable and crime isn’t much of an issue. Apart from a few medical needs, we can get to anything we need in ten or fifteen minutes. The people are by and large friendly, and you don’t see much of the desperate status anxiety that bedevils so many people in the big cities.

It may not be much to look at, but I’m happy to run down the clock here.

[littlebittybobby]

okay----iwah is okay in some ways, but not sure what those ways are(ha), and i lived in Eastern Wa for 6 years, left and never looked back, Ak for a couple years and it really had possibilities but I was just not quite up to the task of staying there, so back to iwah, where EVERYTHING revolves around Agribusiness. Yup. So, anyway---, Zurra might seem an unlikely place, but it is more diverse & quirky for the person who likes to be themselves than iwah OR even Wa, and like Faux sez: it has a rich history. Lots of it. Usta be cheap to live, but the housing bubble keeps looming larger and larger. So, I can't move. See? But yeah---here's a random photo o' some Studebakers out in New Mexico and then a car(or truck) seat some patrieurotic person had recovered. (see photos). Yup. Thankk mee.6162 6163

[rosarugosa]

I have a very strong sense of place; I put down a tap root like an oak tree! While I could imagine myself perhaps living in another town, I could never imagine leaving New England.
I don't find it easy to make friends other than on a superficial level, so as I get older, I feel like it makes more sense than ever to stay in the place where I've lived most of my life. I know people and places and resources, and now I belong to groups such as the pottery studio and the Lynn Woods Garden Club. I get a lot of value from the beauty of my surroundings, and there is much pleasure to be had from living on the river. I have a deep love for Lynn Woods, which I consider to be "my woods," with its soon-to-be-restored-to-glory Rose Garden, Dungeon Rock, Stone Tower, Steel Tower, Wolf Pits, Balanced Boulder . . . It's a magical, fairytale woods, hidden in plain sight in the city.
Covid and recent political events make me glad I live in an area largely aligned with my values overall, and where there is a reasonable amount of tolerance for differences in lifestyles and opinions. I belong to a few FB atheist groups, and it makes me realize how much easier it is to be an atheist in my area, something I had never considered.

[Portuguese John Here]

So, as you may know, I'm working on a book with a roadmap for making a move away from the current culture and toward a better, saner life.
Wonderful. Based on the subject, I think it's undeniably needed.


1) Describe a time when you said to yourself, "This is where I belong." What did that feel like? What emotion was it stirring up for you? What was it based on? History? Values? Sense memory? Aesthetics? Energy?

Well, I knew where I belonged after I left it. It's unusual. Often, you are where you know you don't belong, and you move somewhere else. How do you find that somewhere else? Finding the opposites. It's like everything else when you get there, you get a taste, and you know that's what you need.

I think you're asking about personal experience, so I'll give mine. I was raised in a place where everyone knew everyone. I went to the same school my mother went. My mother left school and went to work at a factory. I left school and went to work in the same factory. My colleagues did the same; their mothers were my mother's friends. Their mother worked in the same factory mine worked. Their grandmothers and grandfathers knew my grandmother and grandfather. The old people looked at me, they didn't care about my name; they made a judgment about who I was based on what my family was and is, my grandfathers and grandmothers. Those individuals were raised conditioned to that environment. I had the same teacher at school my mother had. My house had open doors. My mother would reprehend my friends the same way she reprehended me, and the same goes for everyone. I talk the same way they talk, I walk the same way they walk, I think the same way they think, and I value the same thing they value. This goes back to my grandfathers, and their grandfathers.

Now that I left, when I go there, I know I'm home. Every building is a memory; I don't even need to recall it or remember it; you look, and you feel it; it's home. It's an energy. I didn't move far away; we're talking about a 20-minute trip, but the difference in how people behave and what they value is completely different. I'd say it's a mixture of everything you said, it's difficult to explain in words. It ain't just nostalgia.


2) The opposite: What has made you feel that you didn't belong in a particular place? Describe the place and why you felt that way.

The value system I was raised with was not applicable. Being down-to-earth and speaking freely was considered a sign of ignorance or rudeness. They were people raised in different environments. It's the history of the place. For instance, my mother worked in cork and making shoes. Cork is a heavy industry; it's repetitive and it kills your lungs and back. Everyone, and I mean it, everyone, worked in that industry. Later on, she worked making shoes, and everyone, and I mean it, everyone, was making shoes. Imagine so many people doing that same thing in the same place, working for the same boss. That was not something my colleagues in the place I moved to had; their parents worked in diversified fields, some of them not even in the factories. Everything about the way they were was different—the way they looked, the way they smiled, the way they walked. I was not accustomed to it and still ain't.


3) How did you resolve that feeling? Or, how did you at least adapt to it? Do you feel that adaptation is sustainable?

I had to adapt. After some time, they knew that was just like how I was. After a while, people know it's not personal; the guy is just like that. Some find it funny, some find it interesting. But it's difficult. I can tell you I never found a sense of belonging. I question how my life would have been if I stayed where I was. Although certain aspects of my personality became useful at work.


4) If you have moved from a place you didn't feel you belonged in, what were you looking for? What is your "Kansas" (vs. Oz)?

Shared values are the most important. How do they live? What do they value? How do they behave? What they don't tolerate? How far are they willing to go to protect their community? Not in the sense of violence, but in the sense of reunion and common vision.


5) In the scheme of things, how important is it to you to "get back to where you once belonged"? Why? If you haven't done it yet, what are your plans for that? If you have returned to a place you feel you belong in, what has been the benefit of that? How is your life different? Please describe the feelings.

It's not very much important at the moment. I feel my colleagues didn't have the luck I had in much part. The place keeps being the same; they are in dead-end jobs with kids to raise. They lost vitality and joy. They drink and smoke; you'll see them old in the same pub. They go on the Sunday ride with the wife, because that's what you do. They live by the line it was given to them. They'll not deviate from that line. That line is history and tradition. I had a chance to think if that's what I wanted for my life. I don't have a wife; I'll be 30 years old in February next year. I don't have children's to worry about. I have a whole window of opportunity ahead of me. I'm focusing on my career for now. I'm focusing on getting fit. I'm focusing on testing myself. I have money—not much, but enough. I can reach 35, no wife, not kids, and say, let's become a WWOOFer (World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms), travel around working in farms. I have a farm, maybe invite people in. I can say, let's go to the ​Himalayas and meditate for a year. Let's go to India. I have the entire world of choices in front of me. That can be a curse to some, and what many of my friends are dreaming right now, at least I have a choice.

[iris lilies]

What a good thoughtful,response, John.

[iris lilies]

What John said: a place of shared values is important in identifying a sense of home.
I don’t mean the knee jerk “political” red/blue values.Those are superficial stances, for me anyway.

Ditto on how important is it to the community to protect itself…a key value.

Since he brought this up 2 things came to my mind:

1. I saw the erosion of “protect the community” in our old neighborhood as the urban pioneers died off and checkbook rehabbers moved in. Painting a broad brush, I consider the checkbook rehabbers as those who were not passinate anout, didnt see or care about preservation of the old buildings as previous residents cared. And crime. There was a shift in how our neighborhood residents treated local police. Criminals will always be criminals, you can’t change that, but you can (and they did) change their involvement with crime fighting programs. Little to no personal involvement, write a check for professional police patrols, is what they wanted to do. And then, criticize the outcome.

I saw them as coddling the criminals and then being outraged when shit went down.

2. We looked for strong social organizations in the place where we moved and
Hermann has that. We see the same faces in the garden Club, in the Historical
society, at the Art Gallery openings…community engagement is strong here. There is always tension in giving citizens vs tourists what they want but promoting and protecting the unique characteristics of our little town is important for all.

When I knew I didn't belong in my home town was early on in all of the “rah rah aren’t we great” community vibe when I always objectively, considered it a not at all great place or even a good place. It was a barely adequate place and to this day I berate my home town and am aided by my brother and my cousin who live there. It is the worst of suburbia and I do not want to live among people who fancy it a “nice” place, they are not my tribe.

[Portuguese John Here]

What a good thoughtful,response, John.

Thank you iris. I made an effort to explain myself, but it's difficult to explain, especially the last question catherine asked. The two films that better explain what I am talking about and what I feel are The Deer Hunter and Out of the Furnace. It's simply what you do; there's not much to talk about; it's just what is. There are not many choices; you follow the path; you don't ask questions. You belong, and that's such a comforting feeling—a feeling I never had after I moved—being welcomed, being accepted; it's the look and the touch of the old lady because you did what you were intended to do; you keep the spirit alive; you live by a code. I reached a place that had none of that. I had freedom to be whatever I wanted, and with that freedom come choices, and with choices questions to answer. It's easier to just follow.

[catherine]

I agree with iris lilies, John. Thank you so much for digging deep and touching on some of those qualities, values and context that are so hard to explain or define. That's why I reached out to you guys--I'm grappling with a concept that I know is important and I know people respond differently to it. I need to learn.

I agree that sometimes you can't define your feelings about a strong sense of place until you learn what it isn't by moving to another place. And then sometimes you return home, and sometimes you don't, but the feeling of home has already been imprinted on your soul. And I do think that a mis-fit between a person and the place they wind up living in can mean the difference between thriving and failure-to-thrive in the same way that blueberries grow best in acidic soil and peppers need full sun. And some of those factors definitely have to do with community values and shared history.

I appreciate everyone here who has responded to my questions--you have all given me a lot of food for thought.

A book that I think of when I ponder this topic is the book House of Sand and Fog. I've read the reviews and none of them really call out what I consider to be a key theme--how a place can represent monumental personal successes and failures. The house in the book title is the "rope" in a tug-of-war between the lonely alcoholic woman who loses her late father's home in a mistaken tax sale, and the family from Iran who purchases it with the intent to make it their new homeland, a refuge with views of the sea reminiscent of their home they fled in the Middle East.

Anyway, I have a lot to think about!

[pinkytoe]

I am cleaning out an old folder of clippings I had saved on various topics and one reminded me of this thread:
"Home is not about a place, it's about an internal experience...a feeling that causes you to drop your shoulders, rest, sometimes take a deep breath...it always feels safe. Home is a place where you are known for who you are and where, at this moment, anyway, everything is okay."

[catherine]

I am cleaning out an old folder of clippings I had saved on various topics and one reminded me of this thread:
"Home is not about a place, it's about an internal experience...a feeling that causes you to drop your shoulders, rest, sometimes take a deep breath...it always feels safe. Home is a place where you are known for who you are and where, at this moment, anyway, everything is okay."

Thank you for sharing that! Do you know where it came from?

[iris lilies]

I didn’t describe very well the place I didn’t feel at home even though I was raised there.

It was a blue collar suburb with cheap housing. For decades there wasn't even a LIBRARY for god’s sake even though the little town we had moved from, further away and much smaller, had a library. I cannot think of ONE even vaguely interesting place/thing/event about that town other than our very cool old Victorian house.

Well, I suppose I could say the population of my aunts,uncles, grandmother, and cousins in the town was another good thing.

During high school I just wanted OUT and that feeling never left.

I just learned that the high school football team won their 4th state championship in a row. That will be driving much of the town’s values and focus. Ugh, high school football

I will admit when I visit that place, I am impressed with their grocery store. It seems high end compared to certainly our store in
Hermann but even when compared to the good stores in St. Louis. I bought wine elsewhere before my last visit “home” because I assumed there would be no decent wine in that store but I was wrong, they had a nice selection.

Also, I have to admit that amid the stupid, ugly, suburban yard decor there are lovely shrubbery and perennials in yards there, but that speaks to the quality of the soil there rather than any dominant aesthetic in that town.

The population has exploded in the past 20 years with developments of cheap, ugly houses. Whether built in 1970 or 2024, the housing stock remains untenable.

[catherine]

Interesting story, IL. So you obviously never felt a strong sense of place there. But I'm assuming that the there is something about the Midwest that you are attached to since you've lived your life there.. was it happenstance, or because you can't see yourself anywhere else? How would you define Midwest values?

[iris lilies]

Interesting story, IL. So you obviously never felt a strong sense of place there. But I'm assuming that the there is something about the Midwest that you are attached to since you've lived your life there.. was it happenstance, or because you can't see yourself anywhere else? How would you define Midwest values?

I’ve gotta have green grass and trees ( though not in my yard, necessarily.) this the number one criteria. I like seeing houses with lawns. I like old architecture.

With that criteria I could live in New England as well. I could live in states more Southern than Missouri, but not real far south because it’s too hot. Every time I go up north to Minnesota I think it’s so beautiful but again pretty harsh temperatures. New England would have those harsh temperatures as well. But I could take— if I had to —cold harsh rather than hot harsh.

I don’t want to over generalize “Midwest values “so I would just say we don’t seem to be as striving and class conscious as those on either coast and in the south. But I found that true out in New Mexico as well, and those folks consider themselves rugged individuals.

[pinkytoe]

I didn't note the quote source at the time but it was from a book. I think the green and trees is a big part of my longing too. Summer and fall here are gorgeous but other than conifers it is brown season most of the rest of the year. I grew up in an older neighborhood in San Antonio shaded by huge live oaks and all kinds of semi-tropical vegetation so I do miss that.