Commentary: Where You Live

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com

How do you know where you live?

Is it by the way you tell your loved ones how to get to your home? Do you give them street names or landmarks?

Do you know where you live by the return address you put on envelopes? Do your children know their address? And if they don’t, how do they know where they live?

Is it by the way the trees bloom in the springtime? Or by the way the leaves change colors in the fall?

Do you know where you live by how long it takes you to travel from one place to another? Or do you know where you live by the different smells you recognize in different parts of town?

Do you know where you live by the memories that are kept when you pass by a school building? Or by the faces you see when you visit restaurants? Do you know where you live by the traditions that you hold near and dear to your heart? Or do you know where you live by the way that neighbors holler to each other across the street during the summer months?

Do you know where you live by the way that you feel when you are near someone who has been in the trenches with you? Or do you know where you live by the way the beating of drums travel across the valley when marching band season begins?

Can you live in the same location as another person but be in another location, too? If you live in Chicago does it matter if you live on the north side of Chicago or on the south side of Chicago? Does all of Chicago offer the same experience for everyone or are there different experiences if you live in different locations? Should all people who live in Chicago have the same experience?

Do people in Chicago know where they live by their access to a beach or the fence that surrounds their apartment complex? Do people in Chicago know where they live by who owned the store they frequent to purchase groceries? Do people in Chicago know where they live by who lives in the house next to them, by who lives down the street from them, by who lives 3 miles from them?

How do you know where you live?

I’ve moved several times in my life: 11 times, actually. Sometimes my parents were running, sometimes my family was searching, sometimes we were trying out different communities and other times we were just looking for a place to settle.

Each place that I’ve lived carries vivid memories. When I return to the fourth home I lived in, I’m always floored at how small it is in comparison to what I remember it being. And even though they are no longer there, I see the two giant trees that stood next to a patio just outside a breakfast nook where I sang to the raccoons who feasted on the bird feeders.

That small blue-collar town holds the memories of my parents’ childhoods and some of my grandparents’ childhoods, too. It is a place where my grandmother opened her home on Sunday afternoons to anyone who wanted to come share a meal. It’s the place where my grandfather’s home was torn down after he passed away so that a CVS could build on that land. It is a place where I can still remember the way the local pizza tasted, and where the school playground equipment I played on during the 1980’s is still the same playground equipment children today play on.

Sometimes I think about moving back to that town. But my friends who lived down the street have all moved into their own homes now; even their parents do not live in the same spaces anymore. The restaurants that I loved as a child have been turned into gas stations. If I visited the annual festival that we loved to go to, I wouldn’t see the same people in the spaghetti tent and my grandmother wouldn’t be playing BINGO all afternoon.

If I did move back to that town, I’d have to let go of the things that I loved about that town, and identify what it means to live there in a different way. While I’d see familiar faces who would know my family’s history as soon as I said my name, it’d still take a while for me to assimilate to a culture that would be different than the one I grew up in.

Many of the friends I have in the town I currently live in did not grow up within the borders that make up that zip code, either. Sometimes I think about how my friends who did grow up within that zip code feel about their town now. Has their grandfather’s home been torn down? Is there a subdivision where their memories on a tractor still live today? Do they remember how the pizza tasted when they were growing up here? Do they miss the candy store? Or the antique shops? Have their neighbors moved away?

For the few who live in the same place their whole life, or even more than a decade, is it always the location that matters when we talk about where we live? Is there ever a point when where we live is defined by who we know? Or who knows us?

When a new member of the community moves in, how do they recognize where they live? Is it by what businesses are nearby where they live? Is it by what location they work in? Is it by the groups that they join? Is it by the one familiar face they see at the grocery store?

Do they know where they live by what they see in the future for that location? Do they know where they live by the area they have to mow or the flowers they want to plant? Do they know where they live by the kitchen they want to remodel? Or do they know where they live by what they’ve been promised; a sidewalk, utilities, new roads or the promise of businesses?

How do those two groups, those who have established their life within a location and those who have recently moved to that location talk about their common life together? Do those new community members need to talk to community members who have been around for a long time? Do old community members need to understand what is important to the new people who also live in the same spaces? Is there ever an opportunity for them to do that? Does anyone even want to do that anymore?

Do we just let change happen? Do places that we live have a sacred note to them? Should we always be open to the new? Or to eliminating the old?

At what point do we grieve what was? Is there ever a point where we come together to redefine where we live? At what point does one reconcile when those spaces change? And is there any part of where we live that’s worth fighting for?