Home Journeys: A Reflection

by Shoshana Moore

Too many years have passed for me to feel any strong emotional connections to the place of my childhood home, the sprawling and rapidly developing high-desert of southern California, where I can still remember catching tadpoles and crawdads with my older brother in the L.A. River.  Life in my family included car trips between the San Fernando Valley and Phoenix, and there was always a predetermined stop in the dry, dusty town of Blythe to fill-up the green Chevy station wagon and eat ice cream cones at the Dairy Queen. Not all of Blyth was paved yet, and I can still see in my mind’s eye the sight of discarded soda and beer cans in the barren terra-cotta hued sand, their blue and red colors worn to dullness by the sun and wind. Perhaps now, at my age, my colors have also been dulled.

In my young childhood, home was populated not just by me and my brother, but the requisite parents, a still older sister, and a lovely, aging golden retriever. I think I liked the dog best. While an outwardly average and peaceful looking family, the veneer disguised alcoholism and protected a father who became increasingly unable to support the family. My dad, who had left school before the 10th grade to help support his family and joined the Navy as soon as he was old enough, supported the family working as a mechanical engineer for a company called Marquardt, which was absorbed by the aircraft giant, Lockheed. Having learned his trade in the Navy prior to World War II, he soon could no longer compete with younger college graduates and was laid off.

At age 10, with my sister already off to college and my brother training for the Olympics, I moved with my parents from our spacious, ranch-style home in Encino to a 50-unit motel and apartment house where we settled down in the expanded owner’s unit. My mother was on-call 24 hours a day to take care of the business. The rental complex was built on land owned by my parents and both had input to the architectural design. My ‘bedroom’ was actually Unit #1 of the motel, connected to the owner’s suite by a last-minute door cut into a wall of the laundry area that united the two spaces. (Later in life I wondered why a child’s bedroom hadn’t been planned for in a more thoughtful way.) Though my life still included school, by the time I turned 11 I could handle all calls on the telephone switchboard for our customers, show and rent one of the apartments, and make out a list of tasks for one of the maids or handy men. I was a well-spoken, tall kid, and by the time I was 12, most people thought I was a much older teenager. When I was 13, my parents left me in charge and went on a 2-week trip back to my mom’s hometown in Minnesota. In spite of the fact that eventually another couple was hired to live at and manage the motel, and we moved back into another shaded rambler when I was 16, home didn’t feel so homelike. Dad was in-and-out of AA. It was only through Mom’s efforts that there was a decent roof over my head and my siblings had their college paid for. Reading had always provided an escape from the chaotic undercurrent of home and my wide-ranging bookish travels served me well in school. It wasn’t surprising that as soon as I graduated from high school, I moved away from home at 17.

Over the next period of my life, home on two different year-long occasions was a couple of vans filled with luggage, sound equipment, instruments and a small group of idealistic and good-hearted, though temperamental, musicians. We were on a mission to make the world a better place. I felt close to my fellow group members: eating together, traveling all over the United States and Canada, and performing on stage created a comfortable, secure sense of family that often felt more stable than the family I’d left behind. The added thrill of really seeing the country by road and experiencing some of the unique, regional cultural flavors (both bitter and sweet) of the North American continent added an extra dimension of intimacy. I can still recall the feeling of dreaminess of a long drive over the high-plains into Cheyenne and seeing a huge rain storm race ahead of us and then stall over the city, the clouds dumping rain and flashing with lightening. These new experiences, plus the traveling, making music together, and the sense of a shared purpose created a perception of family that I had simply never felt before. Had I created a new family? Did I have a new home that was not anchored to one place, but that embraced a snowball fight in northern Alberta and a first-time swim in the Gulf of Mexico?

Sadly for me, concert tours come to an end. Where would my journey for home take me next? While I paused for a year to move back to the shady rambler and be a witness for the last year of my mother’s life, my idealistic vision for the world landed me in San Francisco. Though I was too late for the flower-child revolution, the world still seemed wide open. I joined a cult.

At the time of course, I did not think it was a cult; after all, though we did live with each other in various group homes and apartments in the area, we did not live in a commune. And there certainly was no free love going on. In spite of the long work hours, manipulated sleep deprivation, and constant verbal abuse, I managed to forge some close personal relationships. The authoritarian structure, which would eventually become a target for my defiance, provided a sense of home-like security.

The leader did have one strongly held notion that dove-tailed into one of my own loves. While he certainly dictated individual behavior and the minutia of the group’s world view, he prided himself that we were a well-educated bunch. I read. What saved me in high school sowed the seeds of my rebellion from rigidity and a view of life that shut-out the possibility of changing one’s mind based on new information or experience. After 5 years, I felt like my mind and emotions had been forced into a long, tiny 2-inch pipe. Multiple leaks were growing from trickles to geysers. After one friend fled in the middle of the night and another was actually kidnapped by his parents, I found my own way out. Collapsing into hysterical tears on a daily basis interferes with one’s ability to carry out a mission. After several failed efforts on the part of the group to rebuild me back into a compliant member, the leader declared me a dangerous element, forbid contact with me, and kicked me out on the street. Great, where was I going to find home now?

I felt like an abused spouse who tried to stay and make it work, but ended up being divorced by the self-righteous partner who threw me out, then blamed me for forcing him to do it. But flowers sometimes grow in the cracks of sidewalks, and somehow I found the determination to bloom. After visiting every state in the continental U.S. and working in Alaska, I returned to western Washington. I felt nurtured by the rains of the Pacific Northwest and found passion in the beauty of the mountains and forests. It was as though the physicality of the environment provided me with the life necessities for my metaphysical roots. It felt like a place where I could heal. It felt like a place to make a home.

Home itself has been fluid. Some years have found home filled with people. All contributed to and benefitted from the environs for various periods of time, and then moved on. Sometimes joyfully and sometimes painfully. Current reflection has made me realize that I am the one who has been the persistent presence in my home. And the more comfortable I am in my skin, the more nourishing is my home – wherever it is and with whomever I am with. People, of course are the essential humanity of a house, but I also love having books scattered throughout my home; and there are always a few things whose only purpose is beauty or memory. But I am the constant.

My life, and the expression of home in my life, continues to move forward and evolve. The process is filled with mistakes, but it is also filled with moments of great joy. The mistakes have created opportunities for success and have been essential in bringing me to a place where my home is a place of grace and inquisitiveness; of openness accompanied by discernment to choose wisely; and of love for and from the people who are part of my extended family.

I also choose an attitude of expectation for my home. I am not at all ready to leave life here on this earth and if I’m lucky I’ll be around for another 50 years or so (yeah, I want to get really old). I want to get a double Masters (English and History), do a horse trek on New Zealand’s south island and drive the rest of it, see a polar bear in the wild, walk the streets of Moscow and Montreal, keep learning new things and meeting new people. I take my home with me wherever I go, because my home is a reflection of what – and who – I choose and who I am. My colors have neither faded nor dulled. I look forward to adding new hues.