Category Archives: Home

Being Home

Posted by dkrashb on

After returning from Columbus and our own bed, I sleep soundly, but still awaken at 4AM. It seems to be the magic time for me these days. Perhaps I really do need to re-prioritize with yoga going to the top of the list? But here I am, at 4AM, wide awake. I take my laptop out on the balcony and sit down to blog. This is my favorite place in the morning. The city traffic trickles by instead of roaring and the cool morning wind makes me feel like someday, it really will be less than 95 degrees. I pause and look out over the city lights–many of which are solar powered. The lights make Chattanooga seem like a bigger city than it is, glowing with the insistence that it matters. I think about my sister-in-law and my nephew. They are in New Orleans,when sister-in-law returning my nephew to college after summer break. She will drive to Chattanooga today, staying with us for two nights as our first visitor. I think about how the city looked to me the first time I saw it and wonder if it will charm her in the same way.

I relax for a moment, realizing that today will be a relaxed day compared to the previous days in Columbus. With no one to see and no need to commute to work, I will wake Pat up in a couple of hours and we will take our morning walk by the river. I check my work email and take care of a few quick items, making sure There are no emergencies that require changing the pace of my morning. As the first rays of sunlight start to hit the bridges below, I pause again to appreciate the changing scene. A bat flies by, probably to retire for the day, and I wonder how many Mosquitos it ate last night.

I go in and open the refrigerator. It’s completely empty except for a water-filter pitcher. We have been buying groceries European style–buying only what we need for a day at time. In some ways it seems a waste of an American refrigerator, but the walk to the grocery is short and carrying groceries home limits how much we can buy at one time. I smile as I think of how many small things have changed in our life by moving to a new community. We could have walked to the grocery store in Columbus every day, but it didn’t occur to us. Changing places makes us think more about changing habits.

I putter around for a bit in the kitchen and then return to the balcony, still thinking of my nephew going back to school. I remember going back to college myself. It was not such a dramatic change for me. For one, I didn’t leave my home town. In fact, I didn’t leave home until my senior year (although I still paid rent). For another, I took classes every summer, so my break was limited to 3 weeks between summer and fall quarters. I also worked, so the continuity of my job(s) kept that break from feeling much like a break. Even so, the feeling of going back to school always delineated the summer from the fall even when the weather belied the shifting seasons. It was always a time of reflection with a sense of starting fresh. I wonder where that feeling went after so many years of work with no seasonal changes. I now look forward to fall for the shift in weather. The cold nights and sunny days feel like a burden lifting, but gone is the excitement of starting over as the seasons change. I wonder if, in this new place, that excitement will be reborn.

It’s almost time to wake up Pat. When I return inside, he is already up. I check my email again just in case something is going on in another part of the world where the offices are shutting down for the day. I wonder if my colleagues on the other side of the globe are watching the sunset as I watch the sunrise–each of us witnessing the same event from opposite directions.

Defining Home

Posted by dkrashb on

I’ve made up my mind–home really is the place where you have your own bed.  Set aside the view from our apartment, the endless things to do, the relaxing walks by the river–those are all things we would enjoy on vacation.  It’s our bed that I look forward to returning to.  I find it odd that after 40+ years of living in Columbus, moving my bed makes me feel like I’ve moved my home.  Leaving behind good friends and the opportunity to see those friends makes me sad, but in a world where I can text, Facetime, Skype, Facebook, email, and call from various devices and at no extra charge, it’s hard to feel like I’m really leaving anyone behind.  It’s the bed that calls me home.

Once on the road and thinking about sleeping in my own bed, I find myself anxious to get there.  Unfortunately, the road isn’t so cooperative.  North of Cincinatti, we are snarled in a traffic jam that brings us to a dead stop.  I make good use of the time (since Pat is driving) and pull out my new Verizon MiFi.  I manage to get online and get a bunch of work done as efficiently as if I’m in the office.  Even Sametime (Lotus instant messaging) works flawlessly.  Pat decided to get off the highway and we drive through small towns trying to find a way around the traffic jam.  My wireless broadband hotspot keeps me connected through the whole thing.  After spending about and hour and half in the traffic and another half an hour half lost and working our way back to the freeway, we once again cruise along at highway speeds.  I continue working for a couple more hours with childlike amazement that I can instant message and email and surf uninterrupted as we speed along the highway.  Having worked in telecom for many years prior to my current job, I know too much about what can go wrong to not be impressed by the technological advancements that allow for this moment in time when virtual presence can be maintained from virtually anywhere.

Pat gets tired of driving and we change seats once we make it into Kentucky.  It’s the first time I’ve gotten behind the wheel in nearly 3 weeks.  I set the cruise control and enjoy the feeling of driving for several hours.   I am surprised that it feels no different.  I don’t know why this surprises me–I have gone for weeks without driving many times in my life.  Years ago, when I used to have a job that involved traveling internationally for weeks at a time, I would go without driving for as long as 6 weeks.  I am reminded of a trip to Italy when, after having been there for 3 weeks, I rented a car since it was over Easter and the colleague who normally drove me was on holiday for a week.  Driving in Italy definitely felt strange.  The last day my colleague was still with me, we decided I should drive to the office so I would learn the route (since I never seem to pay enough attention as the passenger).  When I went to enter the freeway for the first time, I started accelerating on the entrance ramp, preparing to merge.  My colleague started screaming, “No, Dianne!  No!  Stop!” as I looked over my left shoulder for a gap in traffic (which I couldn’t find).  When I turned to see why he was screaming, there was a concrete wall dead ahead of me.  I screeched to a halt just in time to avoid slamming us into unforgiving concrete.  My colleague was sweating.  This was my second trip to Rome and even after having ridden with him daily for a combined 6 weeks, I had failed to realize that Italian entrance ramps aren’t designed for merging.  I’d always wondered why he stopped before trying to jump into traffic moving at a high rate of speed!  I quickly learn how to go from a standstill to moving into traffic going 80 KPH in an under-powered sub-compact Italians call a “medium” sized car.

But this is not like driving for the first time in a foreign country.  In fact, even the things that annoy me remain the same.  I am particularly annoyed by people who change speeds dramatically.  This phenomena is heightened by the fact that I am on cruise control in a vehicle with a powerful enough engine to make it up the hills going through the Kentucky mountains without much change in speed.  Others seem to slow down 10 MPH or more going up the steeper hills and speed back up coming down.  I understand when trucks carrying heavy loads crawl slowly up hills, but when a car whose average speed is only slightly slower than mine keeps passing me on the downhill only for me to have to pass them again on the uphill, I get annoyed.  Perhaps this annoys me because I want to feel like I’m making rapid progress towards home and the repeated passing of the same vehicle gives me the sensation of going backwards.  I do not do backwards well.  Ask Pat.  He frequently teases me about my unwillingness to take a route that includes backtracking, to go back for something I’ve left behind, or to change my mind once having set a plan into motion.  It’s one of life’s lessons I retake on a daily basis, yet I seem to always end up in the remedial class.

We make it to Knoxville before I find myself growing too sleepy to drive safely.  After a pit stop at Burger King (see previous post), Pat takes the wheel for the final stretch home.  I try talking to him to keep him awake, but quickly find myself slumping over, my head drooping towards the window.  Each time I reawaken, I imagine what my slack face must look like to drivers that we pass–head bobbing, loose jaw, closed eyes.  I wonder if I look like I’m dead.  I try my best to stay awake, knowing that Pat is fighting sleep too, but I suspect my parents used to take me for car rides on nights I couldn’t sleep and the feel of being on the road well past my bedtime still hypnotizes me.  I tell Pat to stop and sleep for a bit if he can’t stay awake.  He says we’re almost home; it would be weird to stop now.  I say, “better weird than dead.”  He laughs, which energizes him for a few minutes at least.

We do make it home safely.  Tired and groggy, we pull our bags out of the car and make our way into the lobby of our building.  I enter the access code four times before it works, giving me a moment of panic that we’ve forgotten the code and we’ll be stuck outside sleeping in our van after all.  We make it to the apartment, drop our things, brush our teeth and fall into bed otherwise un-groomed.  Ahh!  The bed!  It is good to be home.

Make up, Shoes, and Going Home

Posted by dkrashb on

After a ride along the river, I come home smelling like somebody else. And not a somebody else I want to be in close proximity to. A shower is in order. In the bathroom, I look in the mirror at my sweat-streaked face and realize I haven’t put on make-up since we moved. I recognize that vacation feeling that makes me feel like I don’t need to worry about what anyone else thinks. I guess living somewhere temporarily is freeing in that sense. I don’t have a sense of “I’m going to see these people over and over again.” Plus, working from home means there are no co-workers to see how bad I look without mascara. What is it about feeling away from ‘home’ that changes my attitude? I like it. It makes me want to gobble up every experience there is to have because I feel like I have so little time to enjoy this place I’m in. But, I also know I have enough time to see a lot as long as I don’t procrastinate. And, of course, we can always stay longer.

Now it’s time to pack. After only two weeks we’re returning to Columbus for a few days so I can make sure everyone at the office knows I am still around. 🙂 I realize I don’t know where my travel supplies are–the small bottles of the products I think I need when I’m going to the office, including the small make-up kit that fits nicely into a suitcase and helps me cover the blemishes of age and acne–the former I can’t outrun and the latter I can’t outgrow, but both I can conceal. Then it dawns on me–I haven’t driven a car for 2 weeks. I wonder if I should take my bike?

I look forward to seeing my friends again. I feel like it’s been ages even though we normally don’t see most of our friends for far longer than 2 weeks at a time anyway. I guess because we see different friends every week vs no friends at all for 2 weeks, it feels longer. My husband said he felt like a visitor when he returned last week. I wonder if I’ll feel the same?

For the first time since we left, I have to think about what to wear. It will be nice to get some more use out of my work wardrobe, I suppose. The dust hasn’t accumulated too much on my skirts and jackets yet. They hang slightly rumpled in my closet from being packed into boxes; into a suitcase they go, rumpling all over again. My shoes are neatly stacked, still in their original boxes. Over the years of trying many organization techniques for shoes, I’ve found keeping the boxes to be the best. Boxes stack neatly on the shelf and prevents crushing and stains unlike any rack in the bottom of the closet that I can never seem to use with consistency. Plus, I feel like I just got a new pair of shoes every time I open up a box and remove the paper stuffing. Although I have tried to learn not to buy four-inch heels, I can’t help but enjoy being 6′ 2″ in them, even when my feet are aching.

It’s the one stereotype about women that I embrace–I do love my shoes. Yet, for two weeks, I’ve worn only my Chacos hiking sandals, my biking shoes, and my Vibram Fivefinger trekking shoes. I wonder if my feet will still fit into my narrow heels after so much freedom? I imagine them curling back and refusing to go into my heels out of protest like alien creatures with a mind of their own.  I select a pair of heels that are high enough to keep my hems from dragging but comfortable enough to wear every day.  Since I am taking a small suitcase, I decide one pair of heels will have to do and I select office clothes that will go with the pair I’ve picked.

I place everything into my suitcase, thinking how long it’s been since I packed to visit Columbus–the last time was back in the 90’s when I was doing a 6-month assignment in Dallas.  I remember where my travel toiletries are–they are still at the fitness center at the office in Columbus.  My suitcase looks surprisingly empty for a 5-day trip.  I throw in a jacket, remembering that my friends said that it’s cooled down in Columbus and thinking of how cold I get sitting in my office.  My bag looks fuller, but I wonder briefly if I should take another pair of shoes.  Deciding to keep it simple and forego the extra shoes, I zip up the bag with finality.

As we load into the van and prepare to leave, I look back at our building and wonder if I’ll miss it.  Which place feels more like “home” now?  Columbus, where I spent the vast majority of my life, or Chattanooga, which I’ve enjoyed for 2 weeks?  Often, I think “home” comes down to where your bed is.  There is something about sleeping in your own bed that makes any place feel like it’s your own.  We’ll see.