ich bin ein...

you know how they say that in a seven year period the body essentially re-grows itself? new cells and all? if we take that as truth, by some assessment, i am an entirely different person now compared to who i was seven years ago.

this is on my mind because it was seven years ago that i moved away from the south. i graduated from college in may of 1998, moved that summer to boston. and that was that. no more mississippi driver's license. no more permanent address at my dad's. no more. all mine. my bills, my space, my mistakes. my life.

last night, dad, daniel, caitlin, and i went to see "the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe". before we left the house, while dad and i were waiting in the car for my brother and sister, dad said to me, because he knew that i had already seen the movie, "hey, please don't tell me what's coming up next the whole time, okay?" and i said, "come on, dad -- i wouldn't and i don't do that." he gave me this look that suggested that i was full of crap.

and i lost it. maybe because i had just woken from a nap. maybe because i feel so icky-out-of-place-out-of-sorts when i'm at home, but i responded with, "you know, you spend maybe 100 hours a YEAR with me anymore -- don't pretend that you know who i am or how i'm going to react to things!"

was i out of line? perhaps. he is, after all, my father. but i am, after all, in some sense, no longer his "child".

why is it that being with family -- those people who have known me longest, who love me most, on whom i will always be able to depend -- brings out the worst in me?

perhaps because they really don't know who i am anymore? or the me that they know is an earlier version of me.

this has been an odd trip home. the katrina damage has a lot to do with that. i still can't properly express how disjointed things are, how foreign things look, how unnatural it seems, how unsettled and uprooted i feel. and yet, this storm was the most natural thing to have happened. this town is on the gulf of mexico. hurricanes happen every year. it's an assumption of risk, to some degree. you buy a home on the beach, you pay the price of prime property with an amazing view. but you also pay the price that comes with being so exposed.

shit happens. life changes itself. something that i've been very profoundly reminded of as i've seen what this hurricane has done to so many lives here is that sometimes we truly have no control.

when i think of pascagoula, i think of all of the reasons why i left -- the things i want to do with my life aren't here; the people with whom i feel i fit in aren't here; it gets really hot and humid in the summertime. unfortunately, the majority of my associations with this place aren't so great.

and yet, there are some truly amazing people here. my dad knows so many good families, people with beautiful hearts. the community here has pulled together in so many fantastic ways since this storm. how can i lose sight of that? how am i so foolish as to forget that for as many reasons as i had for leaving and as important as those reasons are to me, the people who have stayed have reasons that are every bit as legitimate?

so, there. looks like i'm just as guilty. my 100 hours per year of connections to this place are just as inadequate. i've taken those little snapshots and have combined them with bad recollections of teen angst and a sick mother and the nagging desire for my own independence and have converted them into some mottled history of what my hometown is supposed to be.

and just like anybody's history, mine is full of slant, informed by subsequent experience, inevitably subjective.

pascagoula is no longer mine. realistically, it hasn't belonged to me since i belonged to it. and back then i was a whole different emily. and back then it was a whole different pascagoula.

enough of this for now. the house is quiet. i'm the only one here. it's a gorgeous day outside (i can't believe i was complaining about the weather! i can actually be out in the sunshine without fifteen layers of clothing on!) and i want to be here right now. it's important for me to be here right now.

i'm a silly girl. a foolish girl, sometimes. i think i'll go visit my mom at the cemetery. take her some flowers. and then i want to go back to the beach. by myself this time. figure out where this place and i fit with each other now.

deep breath.