Is it the place where you were born? The place you grew up? Where your family is? Where you went to school?
Or is it the place where you feel comfortable? Where you feel you belong? The place where the landscape speaks to you and you feel at peace?
I'm faced with this dilemma every time someone asks me, "Where are you from?"
They typically are not satisfied with my glib answer of "Oh, everywhere".
I can fake an answer and say, "Texas", since that's the one place I spent most of my military upbringing, is where I went to college, and is where my parents still live. Also, most people inevitably, and oddly, have a cousin or a sister somewhere in the vicinity of Fort Worth, so it's an answer people can relate to and comment on.
"Well, you don't have a Texas accent!"
"No. I don't." Good observation.
For lack of a better answer, this one usually fills the void.
It always leaves me feeling a bit empty, though.
Is Texas where I'm from? Kind of. But I'm also from Nebraska, Virginia, a little town in Germany, and, most recently, Wyoming. It's a bit of a pain going into that story when people ask, and they usually end up looking regretful that they asked the question in the first place.
My preferred answer to the standard question is "Wyoming". It tends to confuse people, though. I didn't grow up there, and no one ever has a cousin or sister that lives near Green River.
They usually have heard of the Tetons, though.
"Oh, the Tetons are so beautiful!!! Why would you leave?!?"
It is at this point that I clench my teeth and try not to bite them.
More to the point, though, as I have now been "from" Wyoming and not "in" Wyoming for almost exactly a year, I've had time to ponder this need for people to have someplace to be "from". I've decided that when most people ask you where you're from, they don't really care what your answer is. They're just looking for something to talk to you about, for some way to relate to you. Because, really, what does where you're from really say about who you are? People are constantly breaking free of the confines and stereotypes set for them by their childhood and their upbringing, and many people find that their home is someplace totally different than the place where they are from.
So I ask again - what makes a place your home?
Romantically and idealistically, Wyoming is my home. It is the place my heart longs to be. I actually feel something deep in my chest when I think about being there. It is the place that I have a connection to - the smell of the sagebrush after a rainstorm, the deep cornflower blue of the sky, the wide open space, the stark silhouette of the Tetons rising above the sparkling yellow of the aspens in the fall, the joyful surprise of seeing a pronghorn or a moose or a bison standing just off the side of the road, the familiarity of driving into Jackson and knowing exactly where and how to get exactly what I'm looking for at any given moment, the peace I feel when I'm there.
But as wonderful as it was, I'm not there anymore. It's not where I live. But it continues to be the place to which I compare all others. It is the place I feel that is the foundation of who I am right now as a person. Now it's where I'm from. And even though the average person I meet will not have anything to say about me being from Wyoming except, "Oh", I will continue to be "from" there when people ask.
But "home" is now here in Olympic National Park. Home is where I'm making my way and finding new things to define who I am. Home is where my dog greets me with a wagging tail and where my cat cuddles up with me at the end of a long day. Home is where I know I can find a pizza cutter without looking in six different drawers and a cold beer in the fridge. Home is where I am, because it has to be. You have to have a sanctuary to call your own, no matter where you are.
And who knows, maybe when I move on to my next park I'll have a different answer when people ask me, "Where are you from?"
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