Essay: Sense of Place

Sense of Place

*Names have been abbreviated to single letters that do not represent the actual names for privacy reasons.

When the As were living in Y, my father was born a twin, so they named him K2 and his sister K1. Their next child was a boy; they named him K3. Now, Y was full of lots of people with strong opinions and neighbors complained of KKK affiliations due to the names of the A children. So, when the fourth child was a boy, they named him K4 to have four K’s instead of three. Their next child was a girl whom they named K5 to be on the safe side. At this point in time, my poor grandparents were sick of names that began with the letter K so they named their next two children N because she was born around Christmas and NP to keep the family initials “NPA” alive. The last two children, S and R, were born after they moved to G and so the Mormon influence caused them to give their last two children Biblical names.

When my grandma F was pregnant with my mother, she was also pregnant with twins. (This means that the probability that I will have twins or triplets is astoundingly high compared to the average person!) She decided to name the two girls C and L so that they would have the same name. However, five months into the pregnancy, my aunt died in vivo and so my mother was born alone. A few years later her parents were to have a boy and because they live in D, they were heavily influenced by sports culture and wanted a football player of a son. They debated the names “K” and “B” until his birth date when he was named B. Uncle B later went on to marry a woman named the female version of B so I guess the right name was chosen.

In the year 2000, my uncle K3 was shot to death by an elderly couple who were his roommates. They had fallen behind on rent and grew agitated when he started asking them about the rent money. Every year on his birthday and death date, we go to his gravesite and recall stories of his life and spunkiness. I have no personal memories of this dead uncle of mine but I have heard so many stories that I know who he was as if I did. Uncle K3 was the odd-ball of the family who lacked all social understanding. When he was young, he would take the bus system to explore different parts of the city and would not come back home until late in the evening, getting caught up in the excitement. Like uncle K4, uncle K3 was also taller than my father and so my father received hand-me-downs from his brothers instead of the other way around. After my brother and I were born, uncle K3 bought an M&M figurine for us. Apparently he had deep affection for us that we reciprocated.

In the 1600’s the Ps came to the colonies. Shortly thereafter in the early 1700’s, the Fs followed. By mid 1700’s the Ts and As had joined them. The Fs settled in Y. The Ts and As settled in X. The Ps traveled all the way to D, outside the jurisdiction of the colonies after helping to create the Declaration of Independence. But no, there is no ancestral signature on the document because they had the flu that month, thanks for asking. Consequently when somebody asks me where I come from how can I say anything but the United States? All of my blood has been here from the start. If you go back far enough into my bloodline, you find that my last name is Dutch and that a majority of my ancestors were German. But I am not Dutch and I am not German. Nothing that makes those cultures and peoples who they are applies to me. So, who am I? That requires a recent history.

The Ts and the As lived in X. My Great Grandfather was born in 1920 and served in the Korean War. Before he was deployed, he met a young woman via friends and they became pen pals while he served in Europe. After he returned to the United States, he married her and moved out to W. And that is the basics of the story of how they met since they consider everything prior to their marriage their introductory encounter. The Ts moved to W a few years after. My grandma and grandpa A met at a church preschool program hosted by the Newman Center on the University of W campus. He thought she was so pretty that he signed up. A few months later she changed her last name from T to A. They moved to Y for a while but after about 15 years decided to settle in G, just in time for my father to start high school.

The Fs lived in J but with job prospects comes relocation so my great grandfather F moved to D. My grandma and grandpa F both lived in D their entire lives. However, after my grandfather served in Vietnam for a year, he went to DC in the springtime to train in the FBI fingerprint training program, which was a new and exciting prospect. Waiting in the same line as him was my grandmother. He approached her and told her seriously that one day she would be his wife because apparently he had dreamt about his future spouse before and knew that she was it. She thought he was crazy but married him that November anyway. They moved back to D and have lived there since.

My father joined the Army Reserves under an extended 6 year enlistment while attending university in W due to familial connections. My mother grew up in the state of D but did not want to go to school instate. She instead went to the University of W due to its proximity to her parents’ house. They met at InterVarsity— a nondenominational Christian group that no longer exists on that campus— and he found out that she was staying in his twin sister’s old dorm room. After a few social visits with some friends, he started to pursue her until she relented to dating him. A few months later my father went on a 17-day tour in Panama and returned to get married. They moved to G so that he could get his Masters in Computer Engineering and never left. So why am I here at the University of W? Because I am a 4th generation college student at this University on my father’s side, 2nd generation on my mother’s and the entirety of my family history has led up to this moment and this place.

Who am I? I am an A. If you knew my extended family on my father’s side, that would be all that you would ever need to know because of their deep influence on my life. I am also a Roman Catholic who has come from long lines of the faith and while certain members have fallen away, that line remains strong. I am a dweller of the RM like my ancestors before me. I am an American. My family has lived the entire history of the United States thereby how can I not say that it belongs to me? What am I not? I am not an immigrant. All of my family crossed the ocean barrier before this land became a country so I am not an immigrant because they did not come to a formalized country, they came to English territory. They came as colonists who watched this country form. I am not Caucasian. To trace back to a time where you could incorrectly argue that idea, you would have to go back more than 400 years. If anything, my ancestors were Germanic. But I am not Germanic for that history is too far removed to mean anything of value. Honestly, who I am is not yet known. My individual path to follow is based on the lessons that have been left behind for me but lessons are not answers, merely guidance. As the As and the Fs before me discovered themselves and became the people that they are at this University, so must I do the same. Who am I? The world may yet learn.

When I was deciding on which University to attend, the one factor that swayed my mind in the U1 versus U2 debate was a simple building: The Engineering Hall. A majority of the men in my family are computer engineers while most of the women are teachers. As such, no other group of people feel more homey than a cluster of computer scientists. When I was touring the University of W, part of the tour entered the Engineering Hall and I was immediately captivated by the familiarity of a place I had not yet visited and people I had never known. It was immediately family as I recognized the same characteristics in them that I know and love in my uncles and my father’s coworkers. I could imagine myself spending my days and my nights curled up on one of the couches, getting homework help from an engineer, and basically living in that dimly lit building. It was comforting, it was safe. Now, I have not spent any time in that building outside of classes and I doubt I ever will but the initial welcome of it settled into my mind that W would be my home. Ever since, parts of this campus have affected me in various ways causing the little town of T to be a place of serenity.

W is a temporary home, a temporary refuge. Once I finish school I will not belong inside the town and will be cast away like an annoyance. The knowledge of its provisional existence in my life distances its ability to remain a comfort for fear of the day that I will be uprooted and leave.

Such is the case for most places of comfort. When I lived in N there was a park near the house that I would frequent. In that park is a tree that I loved to lay next to while reading in the day’s sunlight. I have a lot of memories of spending time in that park as a child and all of the adventures that ensued. I belonged to that park and it was mine. We moved during my ninth grade year to R and I left that park behind. Going back to that neighborhood and the places that I spent so much time makes me remember the halcyon days of my youth and I treasure that location because of my history with it… but it is no longer home. Home is bound by the periods in life and when one begins another ends. Many places have been my home, my solace, but only one is home.

Belonging to a place is often tied with the people that encompass that area. What made G my home was my family and the friends that filled my school days with laughter. N was my home because of the experiences that I went through with the people that mattered to me. I knew the University would be my home because of the people that I found within. During my time at the University of W my friend group has changed drastically, consisting of the girls that lived on my dorm floor to people that I hold value in and share more of the college experience with. Without these people in my life, I could not call W my home. This place of refuge is tied intimately to those that also lodge there. W is home because my friends are my home. When they finish their schooling and leave W, W will no longer be home but rather a memory of a past habitation.

I am as I was raised. I am obstinate because I was raised by stubborn parents. I am a mountain dweller because it is all that I have ever known. I am Catholic because my family is. I am fiercely loyal to this University and all that is inside its boundaries because of familial connections to this location. Where do I belong? I belong to the places that remind me of what I know. I belong to the people that fill my memories and the people that will. I belong to the locations that feel like home but what I accept as that comfort is solely up to my personal preference which is influenced by my past. Whether or not I belong depends on whether or not I feel like I should. The real question lies in what I accept as my defender, my protector, my solace from trouble; the fortress that shields my heart. What am I willing to make my home?