Both Oars In Homesick

Oct 16, 2009

My first experience with homesickness occurred during my high school years on my trips back to Culver Military Academy each semester. For dramatic purposes, I wish I could claim to have been sent away to military school by my parents against my will. The truth is, I asked to go. My parents had to make quite an exception to send their last child to an expensive boarding school after raising seven others through local parochial schools and public high schools. So, I have to admit, my first experience with homesickness was self-induced—but it was still intense.

A couple of times, I made the trek back to school from Marietta, Ohio to Culver, Indiana by bus. Even though these trips took several hours, the feeling of missing home, oddly, did not hit until the bus arrived. After the first time, I was prepared. I made sure I had a good book to read the first night back. I would get into bed and read myself asleep. By morning, the old routine of morning ranks and breakfast would dispel the feeling of homesickness.

I did not have the same feeling with going to college. My dad drove me to Brown for my first year. It was a great trip. I remember discussing a lot of science topics on the way. The only uncomfortable part of that trip was the not-so-grand hotel and the traffic jams on I-95 going through New Jersey. My dad dropped me off at my dorm and left within an hour of doing so. I was too excited about getting my schedule set to miss home or to really appreciate that my dad had just driven a thousand miles like he was taking me across town.

My next bout of homesickness came on a trip to Wales to play rugby. It’s not easy to admit missing home while traveling with some 30 burly guys. But, by day seven, we all began to remark that a little more personal space [Welsh rugby players have a tendency to stand closer as they get more inebriated,] and hot showers with a little water pressure would be nice. Since we played in the small “Walleys” that dotted the countryside around Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, we generally showered in modest conditions at the fields of our opponents and stayed for dinner at the local pub. The accommodations were congenial but modest. Still, I think our comments were less about the Spartan conditions than coded expressions of wanting home.

In my twenties, I may not have been willing to admit to my college buddies that I was homesick over beers at the pub, preferring rather to cloak my feelings in complaints about the amenities; however, I now know that homesickness is not limited to childhood. Hindsight being a hundred percent wise, it is clear that the reason my teammate started a heated argument with our hosts about a misplaced jersey on a later trip to Scotland was not about the shirt as much as it was about being out of sorts with the surroundings. Of course, being called colonials did not help the matter.

The past few days, I have been feeling a bit homesick. I suppose the feeling was spurred by having to cancel a trip that would have allowed me to swing by my home. Haiti is a second home and so are the many places I visit as I travel to raise support for our work here. But, home is really about first places, not second places. It is about our origins. As traveled as I am and as adaptive as I have become, like a homing pigeon, I still know where my real home is.

Subconsciously, I had already made plans for being home. I was going to drive my car down paved roads without potholes the size of small ponds and listen to familiar music. I was going to go to Mass in English. I was going to see my parents. I was going to go to a movie and eat popcorn. I was going to read the newspaper the same day it came and watch the news on TV instead of on my computer. I was going to be home.

Homesickness is not a childish sentiment that we grow out of as we mature. In fact, I have found that it is a feeling that intensifies with age. The older we get, the more we know what home is. Maybe this is why octogenarians are so crabby when they are sent to assisted living facilities. If I make it that far, I hope I have enough good books to get me through to breakfast each day.