Today the real source of my homesickness has dawned on me. Each new move, each big change, reminds me that there’s no chance of going home again.

This is probably because the home I imagine does not really exist. It’s a place where I’m sitting on the porch talking politics with my grandparents on a summer night. (“This war is all about getting oil for the Bush family,” said my grandfather about the 1990 Gulf War, so it’s probably best he isn’t alive to see today’s debacle.) It’s our farm, where we would pick blackberries in June and my grandmother would make them into pies and jams. It’s Christmas with all of my familiy together, everyone happy and stuffed with dressing and turkey.

All of that happened while I was growing up, but those events came only in transient moments. Home itself is transient. Whatever physical space or even relationship you create just won’t last. So you have to take whatever bits of it you can with you.

Home is where you make it. Home is here.

But I’m still homesick.