MEDITATIONS ON HOME
Justin
Chin
I have lived in nine
residences,
across four cities and three countries. However, only two of those
places ever
appear in any of my dreams.
Used to be, the defining test
was
where one wanted to die or to be buried. Then they said that home is
where the
heart is. Then, where the hurt is. Then, charity began there. Then,
chickens,
carrying packets of bacon under their wings apparently, came to roost.
Then, a
house was not a home without kittens or puppies or snuggies or rugrats
or love
or pie or whatever.
When I told my house-sitter to
make
himself at home, I should have been more specific. I should have added,
But
don’t redecorate or reorganize the spices in the kitchen cabinets and
for
fuck’s sake, don’t sell my stuff.
When it comes to home, details
do matter.
Home. Homeland.
Hometown. Home-O.
Auden said that home was the
place
where “the two or three things that happen to a man, happen.”
There’s no place like home,
there’s
no place like home, Dorothy chanted as she clicked the heels of her
ruby pumps
together. Poor dear, gets ripped out by a tornado and then forced to go
on a
road trip with a bunch of feckless and pathetic idiots. No wonder in an
early
draft, she skipped and clapped her hands and sang happily when the
Flying
Monkeys tore her gormless traveling buddies apart from limb to unbloody
limb
and dumped their carcasses in a pit by the road.
But the bitch was
right. There is no place like home. No Place like home. There is no
home, you
understand. Everyone lives in a different home. Sure, the members of a
family
or a commune might live in the same place, the same house, or even the
same
yurt (Ah, Yurt Sweet Yurt!), but they all live in a different home. You
and
your sibling or your identical twin will all live in a different home.
Beware of anyone
who lives in your home. It’s the beginning of a horror movie.
There is no home, there are
only places
like home. And that’s good enough.
So then, where
can one find home? In the dictionary, between holy and homicide,
between
heart and hostage.
Justin
Chin was born in
Malaysia,
raised & educated in Singapore, shipped to the U.S. by way of
Hawaii, and
now lives in San Francisco. Author of 3 books of poetry, all published
by Manic
D Press: Bite Hard (1997); Harmless
Medicine (2001), a finalist in
the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Awards; and, Gutted
(2006), which received the 2007 Thom Gunn Award for Poetry
by the Publishing Triangle. Squeezed in between these were 2
non-fictions: Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks (St.
Martins, 1999), and the ur-memoir, Burden
of Ashes (Alyson Publications, 2002). In the nineties, also led a
double
life as performance artist: created and presented seven full-length
solo works
here, there and where ever. Packed up those cookies in 2002, (with
occasional
relapses) and the documents, scripts, and what-heck from that period
was
published in Attack of the Man-Eating
Lotus Blossoms (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2005).