What Else I Love Here

[mrissa]

We're coming up on six months here; I have my Minnesota drivers's license coming in the mail but haven't received it yet. So whenever I buy booze or, more often, when the clerk decides my credit card signature is too blurred to be legible, I flash a California driver's license.

And they say, "California! Are you from California?"

And I say, "God, no! Nononono! We just had to live there for a few years while my husband finished his doctorate."

"Didn't like it, huh?"

"We couldn't wait to get back."

And then, every time, with genuine warmth: "Well, welcome home!"

I have been welcomed home more times than I can count in the last six months. From C.J. as we crossed the state line in the U-Haul to the checker at Byerly's this afternoon: welcome home, welcome home, welcome home. And every time I say the same thing: "Thanks! It's so good to be back."

Every time, I don't know if they can possibly see how much I mean it.

Soon my real driver's license will come, and then they'll stop saying it in words. But I keep feeling it anyway. The fat robins and the striped gophers. The sudden hailstorms. The skyline. The lakes. Lefse in the stores. The choice of paper or plastic. Kolachys with new friends and spontaneous ice cream with old friends. Picking people up from the airport and running into other people I know. When I'm not humming BNL*, I'm singing along with John Popper: "And you dream about what you are missing when the wind in February blows -- welcome home, yes, 'cause it's your home." I think I took that the wrong way for four years, but it's okay to take it wrong. It's okay to miss the way the wind in February blows, when you're in exile. But it's even better not to have to.

*For those who don't read my real journal, the pertinent line is, "I don't buy everything I read -- haven't even read everything I've bought." 40 books at the library's bag sale, only 4 of them for Stella. Oh yeah. That's the stuff.

Comments

feeling home

[aet.livejournal.com]

When, from one side, missing wet feet, snowy slush (still present in Tallinn, even if the roads are dry already and some days are sunny)and cold wind is so understandable to me, from other side people who live in such climate are supposed to be serious and quiet, not volunteering any small talk.Commenting a customers address sounds so rude to me.

Re: feeling home

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We walk a fine line here. On the one side, there's a very strong private streak in Minnesotans (and North Dakotans and Cheeseheads); there are all kinds of questions that are acceptable from near-strangers in California that are not really acceptable here. On the other side, there's an element of basic friendliness that lubricates social transactions. Kind of an "I shovel your driveway, you shovel mine" principle.

Last night our neighbor behind us had a bonfire going while we were out looking at the yard. We talked to him in a very ritualized way about his bonfire and the yards, and then we said good night. We didn't ask his job or his hobbies or his wife's job or hobbies or where they were from or where they'd been to college. This was our first conversation; we talked for about a minute or two about things that were obviously not prying, and then we left
each other alone. If there was a power outage, I could borrow candles or whatever from Brad now.

Also, California is more than just an address. California is half a continent away, and people don't often go half a continent to grocery shop at a neighborhood store. Perhaps you would say nothing to a French person who showed up in a neighborhood grocery store speaking Estonian with a native accent, but I certainly don't find it unreasonable to comment. (And no, the difference isn't that great -- but the accent is unmistakable. And the word "CALIFORNIA" is emblazoned across that license in large letters, and the information they're looking for is on a different spot than if it was a Minnesota license.) If they saw my Minnesota driver's license and said, "Oh, Spoonbill, like the bird!", that would be rude. Or if we were up north in Duluth for Marte's wedding and they said, "Not from these parts, eh?" about my Minnesota license: rude. California is more than that, though.