MEDITATIONS ON "HOME"
Ed
Lin
I moved around so
much as a kid, I never felt secure in whatever house, apartment or
hotel room
we were living in at the time. I always knew we'd have to pick up and
leave
sometime soon. One of the reasons why I'm so into music is that it was
essentially my safe space growing up. Husker Du's "Zen Arcade" was my
life.
After I was done
with college and living in New York City, my housing situations were
transient
again and for the most part worse than ever. One year I lived in a puny
studio
that got more light at night than during the day. It was at the bottom
of an
air shaft and at 6 PM a floodlight would go on in the shaft. Later,
when I
lived in Brooklyn, my kitchen ceiling sagged with collected water from
pipe
leaks, and then collapsed entirely. But no matter where I lived, I
always had
the same six milk crates of records.
Now, I still have nearly all those records and I probably listen to music more than ever, but my home is with my wife.
Ed
Lin
is the author of Waylaid (Kaya Press,
2002), This Is a Bust (Kaya Press,
2007), and Snakes Can’t Run (Minotaur
Books, 2010). Lin’s works have been widely praised by critics, and he
is the
first author to win two Members' Choice Awards in the Asian American
Literary
Awards. Lin lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung.