home?

Recently on Facebook a poet friend shared a meme; it featured a man making a statement in Arabic, which was then translated into English. Can’t find it now, of course, but the gist was: home isn’t where you’re born, it’s the place from which you stop trying to escape. Okay—I found the quote and it’s by Egyptian writer and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. I can’t remember if I “liked” my friend’s post but I certainly paused to think about whether or not I agreed with the sentiment—and whether I’ve ever ceased trying to escape. When I first got to Brooklyn I was so in love with the borough that I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave—but I did eventually. I’ve been restless for several years and know it’s not really about my environment; it’s an internal dissatisfaction, hunger, anger…it’s a lot. Yesterday I got up at dawn, packed, took a cab to the train station in Philly, took the train to Newark, got the shuttle to the airport, flew to Toronto, took the shuttle into the city, took the subway to the east end, and caught a cab to the assisted living facility where my mother will be staying. The driver was an elderly Jamaican man and we talked about the shooting at the Raptors’ victory parade, and how to stop these young men from turning to guns (or knives) to solve their problems. When we pulled up, I paid him and was surprised to see him get out of the car. I had my bag with me in the back seat but it turned out he just wanted to shake my hand! And I realized that our 15-minute chat in the cab was the most comfort I’d felt that day. After traveling with a knot of dread in my belly, it was nice to just relax and connect with a stranger who felt familiar because we were both Caribbean, both immigrants, both aware of how hard it can be to make a life in Canada (he had family in the US that he visited often). My mother was late getting discharged from the hospital so never made it to the care home, so I walked the 3KM to her apartment and stopped along the way to pick up some dinner. In situations like these I just try to make myself useful. But I’m not a medical professional; today it was my aunt the nurse who noticed the care home staff were about to give my mother blood thinners even though the doctor took her off them due to the bleeding in her brain. Mom has moments of clarity and moments of confusion; it’s a big transition that may or may not be temporary. I’m not a very good caregiver—I have never cultivated the kind of emotional stamina needed to put others first. Teaching demands that at times but caring for a sick parent is something else entirely. I’m thinking about my father a lot these days and how I said fifteen years ago when he died that I would try to do better the next time around. Now the next time is here and it’s just as scary and bewildering and I have that same impulse to flee…but for now I’m taking deep breaths and working on my book proposal that’s due tomorrow. I’ll have lunch with my mother at the care home and hopefully she’ll start to settle in. We see the neurologist on Friday and then I head “home” on Saturday. For most of my life, family has been my greatest source of disappointment. As a result I didn’t want to feel bound to anyone or any place, and made choices that I felt would keep me free. But that’s not how the heart works, is it?