When last we met, I was talking about my awkwardness, my fear of being a houseguest, and the discomfort I feel while staying with friends and family. In my brief trip to NY last weekend, I had the most wonderful experience of being pleasantly surprised by an unexpected feeling–the feeling of being welcome in a place.
In planning my long weekend back “home”, I knew that I was overdue for a visit to my dear friends Theresa Tess & Ken. I had missed connecting with them in my visit last August (and what a lovely visit it was 
) and knew I was long overdue. Connecting on Facebook had only piqued my interest in seeing them, and in getting to know their two kids. Gracie was probably two years old the last time I saw her, and Kate, who was then “Katie” to me and a precocious and sweet little girl, is now teetering on the edge of adolescence. It was way past time to reconnect with them.
Ken’s status updates on FB had often had me drooling on my keyboard. I knew that they had recently completed a kitchen remodeling, and that he works magic in the kitchen on an almost daily basis. So it made sense that I would “conveniently” plan my arrival for dinnertime. (I’m no fool!!!)
However, my usual anxieties surfaced, and no matter who it is, I do not like staying over at someone’s house, because I never know if I will feel welcome, and safe. Nonetheless, I planned to spend the night (and was ready to keep going on to Brooklyn the next day–which also made me feel rude because I wasn’t staying very long) and was eager to see them again in spite of my fears. And when I got there, I was blown away by the outpouring of love and hospitality that I was shown . . .
Kate gave up her bed for me. Ken slaved over a hot stove (okay, a crockpot) all day. meatballs and two kinds of sausage in the sauce. The girls set the table–with the good linens!–the day before, and Kate even arranged a centerpiece of candles. I was blown away as I realized something. They were happy to see me! They were excited that I was coming, and they made it clear in both word and deed that I was a welcome guest to their home. Now, the kids didn’t really remember me, I’m sure, but Mom and Dad set the tone, and they followed suit.
I think that the one thing that really struck me was when Ken told me that, had he not made pasta (hello?! as if I’d ever say “no” to Italian food from real Italians?!), he would have made roast beef, with “potatoes that don’t taste like potatoes”. Why did he know this? Because he had cared enough to read my “25 things” meme on Facebook, and had remembered my potato quirkiness. He cared enough to know who I was, just as Theresa did when she called me sometime last year to say hello and to tell me that she had been reading my blog. (one of those times when I didn’t realize that my despair was showing through quite as transparently as it was . . . )
When I was a kid, the reason I loved my godmother, Irene, was that she was ALWAYS happy to see me. She was one of the few people in my life who made me feel like I was special, like I was loved. Even at my grandmother’s funeral, she reacted with joy when she first saw me. Feeling loved like this was precious to me because it was so, so rare.
Today, with the Beckster and her crew 2500 miles away, I do not often expect to experience that sense of belonging, of being part of something. I do not expect to be surrounded by love, by home, by family.
But in Eatontown last Thursday night, I once again experienced what it feels like to be among family . . . to be with people who make me feel special, and welcome, and loved. And through the hospitality of friends, and in the glow of the evening light, my fears melted away, and I thought I got a glimpse of “home”.
March 17, 2009
Hospitality
Posted by laterain under so | Tags: being adopted, crackbook, kids I love, NYC, so, Staten Island |Leave a Comment
March 16, 2009
going “home”, part one
Posted by laterain under so | Tags: being adopted, kids I love, NYC, rants, so, Staten Island |Leave a Comment
five days, and at least as many blog posts. This one has to be written as sort of a prequel to the next one.
The children of some of the missionaries that I work with were part of an awesome missionary kid video titled, “Where’s home?” This is supposedly a malady that is unique to third-culture kids (TCK’s), but I suspect that most of us struggle with this question in some shape or form.
For me, “home” is a loaded word, not just because of my ongoing (and perhaps irrational) fear of homelessness, but because I don’t feel like I really HAVE a place that is truly “home”. I’m pretty sure that it’s not “normal” to ring the doorbell when you get to your parents’ house, but maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know–I have no point of reference with which to compare it.
If I had the kind of money available to me that would allow me to stay in hotels, things would be much easier. Especially because I actually noticed something like THREE hotels on Staten Island when I was there this time. (two of them actually REAL hotels, if you can believe that!) But instead, every time I head “home”, I am faced with the stress of trying to figure out where I will lay my head. Max’s place, for the most part, is the most “convenient”, particularly if I’m doing most of my visiting with folks in the city, but I still feel slightly uncomfortable and slightly nervous. What if I break something?! What if I’m too loud? It helps that they are no longer living in a 450-square-foot place where I am right underfoot, but I still feel slightly “in the way”.
If I have to stay in Staten Island, things are worse. I basically have three choices:
1) Stay with my brother in the house I grew up in. There are two problems with this; well, maybe it’s more like one problem that has two facets to it. a) my mother is there, and I really have nothing to say to the woman. If I stay there, I have to be civil to her. I managed to go more than ten years without saying a word to her, and have since really only spoken to her briefly when I’ve been visiting my brother, or at funerals. Last year, I spent one night there, and realized right away that I wasn’t eager to do that again ANYTIME soon. the b) is that staying in that house requires that I stay in the bedroom I spent the first eighteen years of my life in, which in itself is just über-creepy. The memories are bad enough, but the horrific “early American” decorating style, barely changed in the last thirty years, does not help matters at all. Nor does the far wall in the front porch area, the spot where my piano once stood before my mother had my brother take an ax and a chainsaw to it because my father wasn’t moving it out of the house quickly enough after the divorce.
2) Stay at my dad and stepmother’s house. Hmm. I am not sure I have yet considered this to be an option. This is the house in which, two weeks after I had first moved out, the room that had been mine was being referred to as “the spare room”. The three years that I spent living there were awkward and uncomfortable, and I did everything–from getting out of the shower to opening/closing my closet doors–wrong. It seems to me that, even if it was offered (and I think there was an offer when my paternal grandmother died), that the ghosts of that place would haunt me just as badly as the ghosts of my former house would, even though the length of time spent in the latter place was far less.
3) Sue’s house . . . ah, Sue . . . an old, dear friend whose “kitchen feels more like home than your own” . . . although I always feel uncertain, and although I feel like a “bad friend” for showing up at random intervals after not staying in touch, staying at Sue’s house is still always safer than staying with my “family” . . . and if I have to stay in Staten Island (which I avoid, even to the point of driving through the night so as to have one less evening’s lodging to worry about), it’s Sue’s house that I normally gravitate towards. The last time I spent the night there, we had only an hour to talk, and yet it was, as the old cliché goes, as if no time had passed. We had a million things to talk about . . . she was glad to see me . . . I was welcome there.
I don’t expect to feel comfortable or “welcome” in the home of another. I actually am quite frightened of staying overnight with just about anybody, even my “safe” people, because of that fear of doing the wrong thing, using the wrong towel, being a burden, being in the way.
Which leads us to our next blog entry . . . about unexpected hospitality, about feeling welcome, feeling loved. Stay tuned!
September 11, 2008
why this day makes me angry and not merely sad . . .
Posted by laterain under Uncategorized | Tags: NYC, rants, september 11th, Staten Island |[8] Comments
. . . and I suppose this is hypocritical, since it’s true that I was not living in NY at the time . . . but nevertheless, I am perpetually frustrated that people who have no personal connection to this day insist on appropriating it anyway . . .
some don’t agree with me, but I can’t help it. It still makes me angry.
- I was sick to my stomach when I saw ads a few weeks ago for the “Ground Zero Museum Workshop“, whose website informs us that “You will have 15-minutes to purchase posters and books or for extra questions.”
- I wanted to turn around and bitch-slap the woman behind me on the double-decker tour bus (aack!!! I have to admit that I was on one of those!) who informed her husband that she simply had to stop at Ground Zero . . . “I have to pay my respects.” To WHO?! Tell me whose name you know . . . tell me which friend you lost on that day. Tell me you’re not merely appropriating someone else’s trauma for your own purposes . . . and maybe, just maybe, I’ll leave it alone.
In the meantime, I’ll promise not to come to your hometown and show up at your most holy, sacred places of mourning in shorts and sunglasses, taking pictures and pretending that your tragedy belongs to me when it REALLY DOESN’T, if you agree to show the people of New York the same respect. Thank you.
June 15, 2008
Sunday blogging against racism #39–”a dull ache”
Posted by laterain under Uncategorized | Tags: anti-racism, NYC, Sunday blogging against racism, white privilege |1 Comment
I thought this entry was profound and worth reading . . .
and then, because I don’t want to be accused of being stuck in power¹, I should also share this indictment of my whiteness . . . because I totally see myself in the woman he describes, although I’m not 100% sure I agree with the latter part of his post.
(WARNING BEFORE YOU CLICK: The title of this blog has had its own controversy; also, the blogger in question freely employs the “f bomb” . . . see, I TOLD you that the only reason I have a gutter mouth is because I’m from NYC!)
