10 thoughts on “Home

  1. My family has lived in or around Louisville since the 1850’s. My wife’s family are spread to the four corners . I say my family has roots…my wife says we are boring.

    I often think one of the best ways to be happy is to love the town you live in. I am in love with my home town and i hope it always feels that way.Report

  2. Certainly, and mobility has its place. I often write in extremes and then, in life, try to strike a balance…Report

  3. Two comments on liberty, parenthood and home.
    After my son was born I realized that something liberating had happened. I was freed from the unachievable “pursuit of happiness”, the fantasy that somehow my own life was going to be fulfilled by the eventual accomplishment of my own dreams and the status I envisioned for myself. Life was already being fulfilled in the love and responsibility and sacrifice that family life involved. It was not about me, but about giving myself to something altogether good. So rather unexpectedly, being “tied down” and having much of my time spoken for was a liberation.
    Second, I realized (mainly from reading Wendell Berry) that giving oneself did not mean un-selfing, self-denial. One’s best self is drawn out by loving the same people, actively, for a long time. This fullness of self, which lies on the other side of giving up the self we wish for, is the truer freedom. It is freedom to be who we are really meant to be, rather than compulsively shoring up the shaky structure we spend a life trying to build up into a self that satisfies our criteria of success.Report

  4. Mark, I couldn’t agree more. Child-rearing is extremely liberating. I truly have never felt so anchored and content before, and it is an anchoring in love that throws the whole messiness of life and achievement into perspective.

    Thanks!Report

  5. Very moving piece, Erik. Living (when I’m home, and not in Maryland) with my parents in a house that my great-grandfather built, five minutes from the farm where my dad and grandfather grew up, where the other paternal great-grandfather built one house, in 1913 (still standing, sort of) and where my grandpa built the other (1940), this really resonates with me.

    I particularly appreciate the sentiment about your grandfather. Mine is a few weeks short of ninety-five; I don’t think he’s spent more than a week off of his farm in his life. We attended the visitation of another long-time dairy farmer (who, at seventy-nine, was relatively young when he passed away) when I was home for Christmas; I actually think, for a while, more people, deceased’s family included, paid more attention to Grandpa than to the family. Weird, but telling of what sort of small, but meaningful mark he’s had, just be being part of the community.Report

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