North, South, East, West: Home is Best

It’s such a cute if not trite phrase, but I think it’s appropriate.  It’s already August 11^th!  How time has flown these past few months and it’s almost time for school again.  The first reminder was an email from my school warning us that OCR would be ramping up right away in September when we got back. Eek!  The other reminder of school’s looming inevitability was one of my friends will be leaving for “vay kay” this Saturday and then heading straight to his college!  I know his college starts earlier in general, but still!  Leaving for school so soon!

So as summer ends, reminiscing before the new school year begins.  How odd to think that this year, my mother won’t be here hounding me to get ready for school, buy my books/notebooks/binders/new clothing, and start adjusting my sleeping schedule.  It’s one of those love/hate things I think.  You love it because they are necessities you need to get done and it’s nice having someone to lean on, but you also hate the fact she’s nagging you!

I think I of all people am able to have a unique perspective on the idea of “home.”  I had my heart set on the idea of “going home” this summer and I am “home” but it doesn’t really feel like home.  My parents aren’t here, my sister isn’t here: it’s just me and a lonely house.  Of course, this is the house I grew up in and the house contains many of my memories; this really is a sort of “home” for me.  Yet at the same time, it’s odd to not have my family with me, and in that regard, it’s not quite home for me.  What an unusual conundrum.  I guess this other trite phrase sums it up well: Home is where the heart is.  This house is half of my home or heart; my family (and other loved ones such as friends) make up the other half.

Oh, woe!  How will I live when I graduate from college and need to make my own nest?  In my new job and apartment, I’ll have neither memory-filled house nor friends/family to make my apartment “home” to me.  It is an interesting conundrum to think of, but one I will contemplate later.  Right now, my reminisce focuses on this house and my family.  I find it funny I don’t quite get this sense of loneliness at my dorm room at college.  I think it’s because I don’t truly consider my dorm room “home.”  I have my roommates there to give the apartment some heart, but I also cried the first night there every single semester because I had left my family to come, well, there.  I think the reason for my sorrow ties into my Home Alone post.  Though I have my roommates and they will support me, they’re not the same as family.

And that, I think, is what makes me realize how much I truly love my family.  I may not have to call them every week and we most certainly don’t spend much time actively “bonding” together with trips or activities, but it’s the certainty in my heart that tells me I can always rely on them that assures me of my feelings towards them.

Looking back over this post, it amazes me how much my mind gets sidetracked, how easily I pursue tangents of thought.  This post started with the concept of home and has meandered into family, although perhaps that is not as strange a path to follow.  No, undoubtedly, I think the funniest part of this post is that it was intended to be about how entrenched people are with their culture, knowing or unknowingly.  I was fixing dinner for myself today (spaghetti and salad), and I was internally remarking to myself how it was funny I’m more used to making American dishes than Chinese.  Of course, I have a good reason for why, but I won’t go into it.  It made me think in the future, will I be different from my parents in that my family (should I have one!) will be raised on both Chinese and American food?  Or will this tryst with American dishes end once I no longer live with my British roommate?  (I somehow doubt that given how easy spaghetti is, and I love salad.)  However, even as I make/eat American food, I can see how my Chinese upbringing clings to me.  I was contemplating on my drive home what kind of dressing I wanted with my salad: should I buy a packet of Italian dressing or live with olive oil and salt?  But what I really wanted was this miso-based dressing available in a Japanese supermarket I’m fond of.  That thought then made me appreciate how strongly Chinese culture clings to me: I doubt any non-Asian would want miso-based salad dressing with their salads unless it was a “Chinese” (-coughs-) salad.  With plain lettuce, they may choose a more American dressing: Thousand Island, Ranch, etc.  But nope, not me!  My salad dressing tonight was a miso-based sauce for shabu-shabu with a dash of Rice Vinegar for the kick.  Is it not amazing how, even eating American food, my tongue craves what I grew up in?  I think it’s astounding how entrenched we are in our cultures, even as we deviate away.  But culture is a part of our families and thus, an effect on our concept of “home.”

And on that random tangent, I don’t know if I’ll ever marry anyone other than an Asian-American.  Would they also appreciate my choice of miso-sauce + rice vinegar for salad dressing?  Something within me suggest “No…”