Home is where the... not sure what home is...

It’s interesting how my relationship to place has changed since moving to LA. At first, I felt very divided between LA and DC. Recently, I had a trip home that felt like saying good-bye. Then I had a trip at the end of which, for the first time, I really wanted to get back to LA. Now, for the first time, I feel like I’m going back as a visitor… as a little bit of an outsider. My friends, of course, would say, “Oh, come on, Jewel, you’ll never be an outsider.” But it’s the internal experience that we know best. It’s how we feel inside that is the lens through which we see the world.

More and more I find myself not caring as much what other people might think. I wear sneakers with a skirt when I travel. I don’t drink as much. I don’t go to every birthday party I’m invited to. I choose to be practical when I travel. I drink when I feel like it. I go out when I feel like it. It’s quite freeing – I’ve heard this happens in your 30’s, so I guess I’m just a year early! But this is a tangent. What I really wanted to write about was home.

As a kid who grew up overseas – an expat kid, a 3rd nation kid, etc. – I’ve always had a bit of an outsider thing going on. Even though I was popular and had a lot of friends in school, I always felt a little apart. Do all of us who grew up overseas feel this way? Do all the kids in my family? Does every human?

There are so many transplants to LA that a frequent topic of conversation is where you’re from. This, inevitably for me, leads to my life story. What I find interesting is that while I was in DC, DC never felt like home. Now that I’m in LA, DC is actually becoming home. DC will be where I go back to for Thanksgiving, Christmas. Where I get to go see Dad and Mom. Where I know my way around the city and have favorite places I want to visit every time I’m there. Yet, I’m not from DC. I didn’t grow up there. I don’t identify as someone who grew up in DC because I didn’t. I’m still a kid who grew up in Saudi on a compound surrounded by empty lots with goats in them that is now surrounded by buildings. But, if we consider Saudi Arabia as home, I haven’t been home since 2000. And now, in my new home – Los Angeles – I feel very much at home after only a few months. More so than I ever did in DC. Am I just adaptable or have I found my essential place, my true home, the place where my dharma unfolds? Hopefully, LA is that, and not just the best of 2 US choices for actors. “Always look on the bright side of life” a la Monty Python.

To be continued....