my summer hiking is done. money runs the world (despite all my best efforts to the contrary), so i’ve had a few job interviews here in durango. my résumé is stacked with previous jobs from houston. at each interview i’ve been asked:
“what brought you to durango?”
“that’s a good question,” i reply. and then i begin to explain. but, i’ll get to that in a second.
recently, i read a book about a backpacking adventure around the world and the notion of home is explored. i also happened to read a photographer’s series called “defining home.” jodi has also been banging on about finding a “home.” the book, the interview, the photography series, and the spouse got me to pondering it.
home: the place where one lives permanently
the only place i live permanently is in my own head. and that still changes and evolves quite a bit, so much that i would say that even in my head, i’m not a permanent resident. that then begs the question: what, where do i call home? like so many things, i don’t know the answer to that question, but i know what the answer is not. and knowing what the answer is not is some times, many times, better than knowing what the answer is. if one knows what the answer is, curiosity ceases. exploration ends. self-discovery terminates.
at least in this society, home is quite often equated with a building or stucture of some fashion. home is a thing. home is a material object. i’ve lived in all sorts of homes. small ones. big ones. permanent ones. temporary ones. homes on land. homes on water. in the mountains. in forests. and all of them, every single one, was simply a place of respite from the elements. some required quite a bit of work, maintenance. others were given none, though they still needed it. home has been inside many borders as well. those artificial lines on a piece of parchment over which humanity divides, kills, and argues. political lines about which nature is unaware until they are fortified with impenetrable, universally temporary, walls.
i’m not sure i have, or know, what my definition of the word home is, thus i can’t really call any place home. but, i know what is not home. and that is much more important. that ensures i don’t wind up in a wrong place. there was a time when i went along with the definitions people necessarily in my orbit had of home. and they almost always felt wrong. so, maybe, home is simply a place, or a time, most probably both, where i fit nicely into the grand machine of the universe as an infinitesimal working cog. where i can whirl away without the sand of society around me grinding me down.
and so, we arrive back at the question: what brought me to durango? i explained in some detail to my interviewer, but i think now i can sum it up in a few short words.
i didn’t fit nicely where i was. texas no longer felt like home.
where i am now is most probably temporary. i like it that way, i think. nothing is permanent, so why should i be looking for something that is? i shouldn’t. but, i find a bit of harmony in durango, colorado, this particular time, in this specific space. it feels there’s much less sand wearing away my gear of life.