la famille, la maison

the words "family" and "home" are interesting to me, two words in the English language that are both interconnected and constantly changing. as a twenty-something young woman, my concept of family and home has become extremely complicated

first of all, living in three cities during one year is complicated. at the youth to youth conference in LA, introducing myself was hard. do i tell people where i am currently living (san francisco, with my aunt and uncle), where i go to school and where i will be officially living in three weeks (seattle, jefferson st.), or where i am from and from where i pull my identity (portland)?

what it all comes down to is finding a compromise...considering a combination of these three cities to be my home

i associate my childhood, my high school years, my beautiful friends who have known me the longest, my immediate family, the house i have lived in since i was born, and my nostalgia of the 10 bridges, powells, urban forest, and hidden staircases with portland, oregon. talking to Liane at the Foundation yesterday about our tie to different places, I associated the nostalgia and community that she feels about hawaii with my own hometown. there is something about portland that only Portlanders can understand- this fierce obsession, love, and pride that comes with living in such a livable, small-town-in-a-big-city. because of this, i don't think i can ever detach myself from calling portland "home," no matter where i go in life. 2735 will always be my permanent address (as far as I know!) and most of myself was created here.

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I associate discovery, independence, expanses of water, ferries, community, love of academia, sitting around with good food, wine, and company, and freedom with seattle, washington. in the last few months, especially, i have missed Seattle more than I have missed Portland. Almost entirely because of the people that I have met there, but I think that this can contribute to one's idea of home more than anything else. Yesterday I received a text from a good friend that said, "you need to come home! and yes, seattle is your home now." Even though I don't have any plans to stay in Seattle past June, at least for the coming year, Seattle has creeped into me and yes, I do think that I can call it home. I have lived there for three years independently, had my first apartment there and will be moving into my second soon. I have learned to love the city, its quirks, its people, its walkability, it's expanse, Seattle U, the family I have found there, and have learned to be annoyed at its less-than-efficient public transportation system (at least compared to pdx or sf).

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I associate restfulness, exploration, independence, public transportation, metropolis, identity as a twenty-something, and my corporate experience with san francisco, CA. i have only lived here for three months, but i have already begun to deeply love this city. i have been coming here to visit on my own for thirteen years now, to the point where the house on sanchez and my family there have become a second house and family. I don't think I realized this until I came to live here, how much my visits to san francisco have affected me over the years. you can never have a true grasp of a city until you live there, of course. when I arrived in June, I only had a rudimentary understanding of sf's geography and transit system, but I feel as though I have a handle on it now. working full time and feeling completely integrated into the corporate systems here have prevented me from exploring the city as I'd like, but that only inspires me to want to return. September 9th will not be the end of my relationship with this city and I hope to come back when life leads me this way again

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...and then there's family. i like to think of family in a broad sense. i have some pretty incredible people in my life, some friends that are too close and special to be considered friends. they are family. my sense of connection to family members has changed throughout the last few years. Becoming more independent has made me want to cultivate deeper connections with my family members, immediate and extended. I send more letters and texts to my Grandma, call my mom more often, and have added all my cousins, aunts, and uncles on Facebook. I have come to realize that despite all these strong connections with friends, family will always be there. My brothers and I will always have an inseperable bond. I may want to live in Cleveland at some point to connect more with my family ties there. I have also have come to accept that family does not have to mean just these people. Family can be what i think it to be. Two of my closest friends came to visit me in SF a couple weekends ago, friends who I consider family. There is a certain comfort, an ease of laughter, a lack of self-consciousness with them that I associate with family.

The thing that is most overwhelming is that I am only twenty-one years old! I can't even begin to imagine how my web of "family" and "home" will continue to increase as I get older, live more places, meet more people, establish strong connections, and even have a family of my own. How exciting! bring it on...