Home.
It’s a simple word, a simple enough concept to grasp. A place where you feel safe, where nothing goes wrong. Your haven at the end of the day. The person, place, or thing you return to, to find peace. For the first 17 or so years of my life, that thing was the Rockaway peninsula, just over the bridge from Brooklyn. Growing up a stone’s throw from the sand and the sea meant I didn’t understand why people got dressed up to go to the beach, or what the big deal coastal beach towns were. I lived in one, and it was pretty cool, but not cool enough (I thought) to make a vacation out of. Sure, we had this great old army base that was also a national park, and a bay, and a boardwalk, and open spaces to play in, and summer beach volleyball and block parties, but younger me didn’t see it for the oasis that it was. But I digress.
We’re coming up on the four-year anniversary of the main thing that broke that word in two. Hurricane Sandy started making itself known in New York City around 4 in the afternoon on October 29th, 2012. My family had heard the warnings, seen the satellite data, smirked at the neighbors who were evacuating. The previous year, we’d seen the same response to “Hurricane” Irene, a measly little thunderstorm that only gave us two inches of water in the basement. What we failed to see was the sheer size comparison between the two, or that high tide was due to hit at the same time as the heaviest rains, or that it was also a full moon. We (perhaps willfully) ignored the factors making it the serious threat that it was.
My high school may have let out early that day, or wasn’t even in session, I don’t remember. My mom and I walked down to the beach when we first felt the winds pick up, and saw the first raindrops- the ocean was an angry gray, with waves crashing where the lifeguard chairs stood watch in the summer. Sea foam in shades of mucous swirled at the edge of the ocean around our feet. By that point in the storm, Irene had brought us a stained glass sunset and a pleasant ocean smell. It was then that I felt the first pangs of uneasiness, but not serious enough to say anything about them. After all, we still had power, and plenty of food. We went home, and I had a “hurricane party” on Skype with my friends. We were laughing about the storm right up until the power went out and I lost connection.
I lost connection with almost as much as I had to lose a connection with. The house, the cars, my clothes, the beads I’d collected since I was nine, books, photos, yarn, two of the family chickens… all gone. The friends I had who were also from Rockaway were dealing with similar losses- houses, cars, clothes, personal belongings, major life interruptions- but they weren’t the same losses. Compared to my situation, they were all seemingly better off; minimal damages to the main parts of their houses, power restored quickly, damage to just the basement, only lost one car, enough funds to get the repairs needed done quickly. It was difficult to explain how isolating it was to move into a relative’s house in Brooklyn, an hour away from home by public transportation, and no one to spend time with. My family was only able to replace one car, and my parents needed it to get to work. Driving to Rockaway was out of the question, and no one’s parents would want to drive me home at night if I stayed late. So I didn’t, and eventually, it started to feel like I lost connection with them, too.
Up until the storm, I’d always associated “home” with the house I grew up in, and I was homesick. When my family moved back to our house in Rockaway, on September 20, 2013, it didn’t feel like home to me. It may have had something to do with how it still wasn’t finished- we were sleeping on mattresses on the floor until the end of October, without heat until November. Walls were primed white until the spring came, and the subfloor visible up to midway through July. We made the best of it with pencil drawings on the walls, and painted rugs on the plywood beneath our feet, and flashes of home started trickling in. My mother made the most incredible Thanksgiving dinner for 2013, without a kitchen- it was all on hot plates and the barbecue someone gave us. My high school friends coming together to celebrate my 18th birthday and helped me forget that we had no floor, no real paint on the walls, no real kitchen. The surprise party I planned for my mom, the look on her face when her friends started streaming through the front door carrying one of the things she missed the most- plants for the front garden. Having my best friend come from two states away to accompany me to prom, and standing in front of the garden my other best friend helped plant for pictures. The happiness in my Dad’s eyes when he came home from work to find a floor where there should be one. My little sister being able to sleep in her own bed, in her own room again. Being able to set up my sewing machine and create in my own little bubble of home, the ability to express myself through the arts again.
I can’t really say that I’ve gotten used to the new house, but I have realized something pretty big about the word “home.” Home isn’t a place, or a thing. Home is something you create for yourself, a collection of happy memories taped to a door in your mind. It’s something small enough to take with you wherever you go, and large enough to shelter you in on your bad days. Sometimes it takes the shape of a friend at school comforting you after a bad morning at home. Sometimes it’s a phone call at 2 a.m. from someone who had never taken you up on your offer before. Sometimes, it’s the stuffed animal that you’ve had since you were two. But me? My home is knowing I have friends and family who will catch me when I fall, inspire crazy project ideas, and challenge me to be a better person.
Oh yea, and my sewing machine too.
