As you know I'm working through this issue myself... about what is realistic or meaningful about moving home, or closer to home, or closer to family. I don't mention it as much, but a few times over the years, I have thought about just moving to Ottawa where my father is, just for the sake of being nearer to SOME family and making it more possible/realistic to build a better relationship with them. I've mentioned it but they never respond to it seriously. They also ignored when I asked, or offered, to housesit... but instead they got an artist friend of theirs, who also stayed for MONTHS after they got home... so it's almost like they unconsciously picked up on my request and fulfilled it, in a screwy pathological way!!!
I think you have the same trouble as me, which is mingling or confusing your family concerns with your other concerns, although I think we have almost the opposite situation--you get along with them but don't want to go back; I don't get along with mine but maybe DO want to go back.
On one level, I think it's kind of sad that your first reaction is to characterize your home state by the identity politics stuff... I feel like so much of that ends up being a generalization on people and communities that are not all the same. On another level I can see it's totally reasonable, because those things CAN be ingrained and WILL affect your future relationships and comfort level, as much as anything else. I don't know if you remember but I had a dalliance with a very left-wing dude who lived and worked in Nashville and now he's in some smaller city in TN. Despite his staunch politics and constant doom and gloom about world issues, I rarely ever hear him complain about the people or culture of TN in particular. Nashville in particular sounds pretty decent for all kinds of people. Randomly I remember Ben Folds saying he liked living there.
But more importantly than how it is down there is the fact that it doesn't seem like it interests you at all personally, except for the fact that you care about family and they are there. Obviously you just need to assess yourself and your life honestly and see what gains and losses would come from relocating. Maybe the hints are meant to make you reconsider Chicago, not to go to TN necessarily but to go somewhere that you want to be even more than Chicago. Or to make you deepen your connection to Chicago.
I am exploring a bunch of ideas and feelings, not only the feeling I have unfinished business with my "homeland"--that I owe my birthplace something of myself, economically, environmentally, socially, energetically, spiritually--but that the simple fact of making ANY effort to engage actively with family, instead of trying to avoid or withhold from them, has deeper effects and results for all of us, that it's part of the whole purpose of being human...
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Date: 2012-01-23 05:54 am (UTC)I think you have the same trouble as me, which is mingling or confusing your family concerns with your other concerns, although I think we have almost the opposite situation--you get along with them but don't want to go back; I don't get along with mine but maybe DO want to go back.
On one level, I think it's kind of sad that your first reaction is to characterize your home state by the identity politics stuff... I feel like so much of that ends up being a generalization on people and communities that are not all the same. On another level I can see it's totally reasonable, because those things CAN be ingrained and WILL affect your future relationships and comfort level, as much as anything else. I don't know if you remember but I had a dalliance with a very left-wing dude who lived and worked in Nashville and now he's in some smaller city in TN. Despite his staunch politics and constant doom and gloom about world issues, I rarely ever hear him complain about the people or culture of TN in particular. Nashville in particular sounds pretty decent for all kinds of people. Randomly I remember Ben Folds saying he liked living there.
But more importantly than how it is down there is the fact that it doesn't seem like it interests you at all personally, except for the fact that you care about family and they are there. Obviously you just need to assess yourself and your life honestly and see what gains and losses would come from relocating. Maybe the hints are meant to make you reconsider Chicago, not to go to TN necessarily but to go somewhere that you want to be even more than Chicago. Or to make you deepen your connection to Chicago.
I am exploring a bunch of ideas and feelings, not only the feeling I have unfinished business with my "homeland"--that I owe my birthplace something of myself, economically, environmentally, socially, energetically, spiritually--but that the simple fact of making ANY effort to engage actively with family, instead of trying to avoid or withhold from them, has deeper effects and results for all of us, that it's part of the whole purpose of being human...