Before, Home

I'm sitting here, the last night before, and cooking dinner. It's funny how the before always comes a few days ahead of the end itself. Tonight is Lici's last night of work. It's about a week until the drive to Indiana.

I had some music on as I was finishing up some prepacking —books and such— and unintentionally, unexpectedly, came some songs with old memories. Old memories from other befores: CTY and Reed and the Plumtree. Isn't it strange how the memory of old nostalgia can lend a spirit of nostalgia to the present? It's no secret that I was never a fan of Bal'mer, but I did do a lot of growing here. Maybe I won't miss the place, but I will miss some of the folks and the simplicity of being tied to neither past nor future.

The last couple weeks have been nice. In addition to the Buffy/Angel, B5, and PS2 overload, misshepeshu and leensterama came out to visit so I took a couple trips to DC. I was reminded how not all the East Coast is like Baltimore, but I was also reminded how long it's been since I've lived in the District. DC was never really quite a home, but it was my escape-home for years before it grew into a home-in-transition for the couple years before moving to p-town and the Plumtree. It's not that things have changed so much as the friends I had then moved on to other cities and other lives. But Baltimore never was even a home-in-transition, it was only an in-transition. I came for a year, stayed for two, but never could settle into the rhythms and flows of the place.

I think "home" is never so much a place as it is a time, a moment, a feeling. We belie this with aphorisms on our inability to return there. We try to make the home into a place, but we can never return in time and so returning to the place once left can bring only sorrow. So too can we not hold time still, whence the solastalgia of remaining too long after the party has gone. We have words like mamihlapinatapai for the yearning and never taking, but what words are there for the never having and finally letting go?