Take me home, country roads.

My family is very staunchly Middle American. I don't mean middle class or blue collar or anything like that. For generations, my ancestors lived in Oklahoma and Texas. It was my parents--and by consequence, me--that left, returning for eight years to the Texas Panhandle from my kindergarten through seventh grade years. This is not to say at all that my family is the stereotype of ill-educated and all-around ignorant that seems to be associated with that part of the country. They're by-and-large extremely conservative (maybe not quite as much as I used to think when I was younger), but the men (I am proud to say my mother, my cousin, and myself are the powerhouse, independent women) are all well-educated and have professional vocations. They're all well-traveled. My great-grandfather learned architecture as a trade (note back then, college was not the default way to get into a trade). My grandfathers are both engineers, and one is also a lawyer. One uncle is a lawyer; the other is a software engineer. My parents are both physicians. They were all born and raised in Eastern Oklahoma (with the exception of my great-grandfather; I think he is a second-generation German immigrant who lived in Texas before moving to Oklahoma).

So I can say with confidence I did not come from a family that lives in the trailer park and shoots at raccoons on a Saturday afternoon. But they are still, all of them (my mother least of all), very much a product of their heritage. We all are. I do not deny that I am. My father and uncle are rather rabidly nationalistic, and I would not have any problem seeing my male cousin joining the Minutemen (yes, the border patrol vigilantes). They take a common-sense racism I find abhorent. I can't stand the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the aversion to anything liberal or "politically correct". It's all in the guise of common sense, always. But in their own way they watch out for their own, even me, a wayward soul in their eyes.

I like my uncle okay, even though we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues. He seems to think Ted Nugent (yes, the "Cat Scratch Fever" guy) has it Right when it comes to gun control--his birth certificate is his concealed-carry permit, and The Man has no right to take it from him. And that, I can understand. Fuck the Man.

Maybe this is why I am pro-gun. I know what it's like living out in the ass-fuck middle of nowhere, at least half an hour from any sort of police aid. It's primal. You watch out for your own, or you die. And you can't rely on anybody else. Maybe that's contributed to my independent streak and my need to be able to defend myself. That is something I always want to take with me and I cherish. Fuck the Man. He won't protect you. Nobody will but yourself in the end. In the end we all stand alone. I want to be wild and free, just restrained by the Golden Rule, or the Wiccan Rede, or however you choose to interpret this universal philosophy: and it harm none, do what you will.

Now I'm back on The Outside. And looking back inside, it's strange.

In Kafka on the Shore Murakami said that we are a product of where we are born and raised, that we will always want to return to that atmosphere. I was born in Honolulu. I left when I was two. Maybe this is why I love the ocean, a multi-cultural city, regular rain, Asian influences. I lived in Arizona from then until I was five. It is then we moved to Texas.

( It is there I was Saved. Twice. )

This is the way I turned out. I don't believe in the Judeo-Christian concept of God. I am agnostic (leaning atheist), a scientist, a social liberal. An iconoclast. Pro-choice, pro-feminism, pro-gay marriage; pro-gun and deeply disillusioned with the government. The Bible is just a book--a fascinating book, worthy of study, historically-aligned and a source of ancient law while at the same time misogynist and hostile to inquiry. I love art that offends peoples' arbitrary sensibilities just because it can, just because people need to be shaken up and offended sometimes. Just for the hell of it. Just to be obnoxious. Just to cause a stir. Just to be liberal. Just to fuck the status quo.

I get a sick pleasure out of Trolling people who used to be exactly like me.

I'm used to feeling like I'm straddling two worlds. Science and art, studiousness and capriciousness, independence and justice. But I think everybody feels like that to a degree.

All of the places I want to go for graduate school are West Coast bastions of liberalism. I've visited all of these places (except Seattle), and every time I go back, I feel like I'm going Home. I know these places have their glaring flaws, but every place on this planet does. It's just a question of which flaws you can most easily stomach. It's such a far cry from the reality I knew growing up, my childhood, where I become an adolescent, where I learned how fully and truly I did not belong there.

It is no secret that I harbor no lost love for the Texas Panhandle or Eastern Oklahoma on principle. I have zero desire to ever move back. Yet, I will always associate it with childhood, and the universal childhood experiences and joys. I found and lost God. I experienced my first sort-of crush. I came into my own. I realized it was okay to be a social outcast. I grew stronger through that, stronger than I ever had to here in Arizona. People loved me, but they didn't love ME, the me I had to hide to be accepted. They'd love the sinner and hate my sins. Those sins are part of me. I loved them.

In that way, it's always going to be home to me.

But it means I know that I'm an outsider when I'm home.

And it's okay. I've come to terms with that.

John Denver idealized the return to his providential lifestyle. He was singing about going home. It's a simple, universal song. In the Japanese version of "Country Roads" used in 耳をすませば / Whispers of the Heart, the singer acknowledges that she can never go home, no matter how much she wants to.

Compare:

Country roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads

And (translated):

Country road
Even though this road continues to my hometown
I just can't go, I can't go
Country road

Country road
Tomorrow, the me I always am
I want to go back, but I can't, farewell
Country road

Both versions of the song speak strongly to me. Both are equally true to me.

And I don't think that's ever going to change.