Home

The concept of home has eluded me since moving to Indiana. When strangers ask where I am from, I give one of two answers: "Do you mean where my cats live or where I long to return?" or "I am currently living in Indiana but it is NOT my home." I started carrying this scrap of paper (yes, small pieces of folded paper run in the family - see the Dad post below) in my wallet so I could break it out and use it as an explanation. When doing the Prairie Creek Reservoir cake float, my wallet fell out of my pocket and landed in the water ruining most of the paper contents. So now the Abramovic and Leonard quotes are retired but remain nonetheless relevant.



Is home where I grew up and have still to this day, spent more time living than anywhere else? If my mom didn't live there, I would never return so I hardly call Idaho home anymore. It is "where I am from" but it is not where I long to be.



Is home the first place I moved from Idaho and will return to in some capacity later on in life because I loved living there and have some of the best memories of that "place"? I tested that out in Tucson early this summer by saying "I am coming back home" and I think it could still be true.



Is home where I feel like I belong and want to return to daily but know that is not possible at this point in my life? See the second Zoe Leonard quote above i.e. is it even home anymore?



If "home is where the source is" then it is the Pacific Northwest. When I visit PDX, Astoria, Seattle... all of this is HOME. The quote I feel most strongly about is the handwritten one above where "home is me." I have had an Oregon license and license plate for 11 years now. I have only lived in Oregon for five of those years. I used to call it denial, but now I call it hope. Before the fake cake floats began, I had two vacations planned for the summer... Arizona and the Pacific NW. In a few days, I am leaving for my other home where fake cakes become secondary and experiencing the familiar and the brand new primary. I've been lucky this summer... two visits back "home" in a matter of three months and I still come back to where my cats live. Obviously it is important to me to include a cake in each of these locales. If I had more resources and added three more cakes to the list, the missing locations that have meaning but are not represented are a river, a hot springs, and a lake in Idaho, a beach in Miami, and Coronado and La Jolla Coves in San Diego, California. Alas... another project and another time...