Home and roots

[Geraint]

It's strange. I feel very rooted but not always happy here. My family have lived here in Ystradgynlais for 200-odd years, and they didn't come from very far away then (from a couple of dozen miles over the mountains, in order to get jobs in the growing ironworks as the Industrial revolution was kicking off in the Upper Tawe Valley) I live back here now after a few years away in college and working away - all in Wales.

A lot of my friends live in other parts of the country, and some in other lands. If I want to speak my language with people around my own age I have to move in different circles, as most of my mates back home here don't speak Welsh any more. That's one of the reasons the Ystrad frustrates the hell out of me. Having said that I feel intensely rooted. Without being too weird about it it's probably because I've been brought up on the history of this patch of earth. I know the names of the mountains, of the rocks on the mountains, I know who built the houses. I feel connected.

It may also be the fact that although my language is in such a poor state here at the moment - around 50% of the population speak it, but they're mainly older people so as they go, it weakens - it is a window on our past. It opens up those names and stories, the poems and legends. The Devil came as a wheel of fire on the Drum mountain when Llaw Haearn, the magician of the Iron Hand, sought a golden treasure under a burial cairn; Arthur hunted the Twrch Trwyth down a valley a couple of miles from where I sit (etc etc ). This goes for how I feel about Wales as a whole, too - to feel that the language I speak hasn't changed much for over 1000 years really does connect one with one's past.

I am surrounded by echoes of myself and my ancestors. This sounds all weird now Certainly it isn't all wine and roses - there are things I'd rather see different here, some things I've tried to help change too. It's still home, though, and I think will always feel like that somehow.

I also do get a hankering to live somewhere else for a change, mind. Somewhere different. Not sure how I'd cope

[emmline]

I live in an unincorporated area now, and there's no feeling of community at all. .

That I understand. Our unincorporated 'burb has a better feeling of somewhere-ness than many areas of sprawl--partly because we're bound in by 2 rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, and in an old enough community that it has several foci which feel like hearts or other important organs.

My sister lives outside Philly, in a formerly rural area which feels like one tract-development after another, punctuated by malls and strip centers which seem to go on and on forever. I wonder how one feels any sense of belonging in such a place?

[missy]

emm wrote:
"My sister lives outside Philly, in a formerly rural area which feels like one tract-development after another, punctuated by malls and strip centers which seem to go on and on forever. I wonder how one feels any sense of belonging in such a place?"

You don't. The area I grew up in is exactly like that. Every time I go out there, I start saying "When did they build that?" "Where did so and so move to?" "Why do you need yet another big box store or restaurant here?" The company I work for built a huge research facility on what was my school bus driver's pig farm growing up!!! And the houses are HUGE and expensive, with these little postage stamp sized yards so that you can reach out of your window and touch your neighbor's house.
But because the houses are so expensive, everyone is a two working parent family, and no one is ever home! So I doubt many of them have even spoken to their neighbors.

It's a far cry from us calling up Mr. Honerlaw to tell him his black angus bull had gotten out yet again and we've got a dozen cows in our yard!!

Missy

[jsluder]

As long as my wife and I are together and happy in our relationship, then we're home.

[emmline]

As long as my wife and I are together and happy in our relationship, then we're home.

yes. sometimes it's a shift in just such a relationship that can trigger the angst. I hope such a thing will never happen to you jsl.

[cowtime]

Like a few others that have previously posted, my family has always been here. My husband and I own his family's farm in the house his grandparents built and the house where he was born.

I can't imagine living anywhere else. (although other places are fun to visit)

[Cynth]

I wonder if the feeling of belonging to a place has something to do with one's upbringing and the tradition in the family. For a number of generations my family had split ups and people had to move for one reason or another. So there has not been for a long time any place where any group of family members stayed and no tradition of sticking around where you were raised or going back there---quite the opposite in fact. I too have fantasies of some wonderful place where I belong. But I think that the feeling of not belonging is coming from inside me, not from the place I am in. If that makes any sense.

[aderyn_du]

I wonder if the feeling of belonging to a place has something to do with one's upbringing and the tradition in the family. For a number of generations my family had split ups and people had to move for one reason or another. So there has not been for a long time any place where any group of family members stayed and no tradition of sticking around where you were raised or going back there---quite the opposite in fact. I too have fantasies of some wonderful place where I belong. But I think that the feeling of not belonging is coming from inside me, not from the place I am in. If that makes any sense.

Sounds a lot like me, Cynth! And yes, what you said about not belonging makes perfect sense!

[Jack]

Anybody here know what duckweed is?

I'm like duckweed - my roots don't go down too far, and I just sort of float around.

[spittin_in_the_wind]

Move to a small town in New England. You'll get roots pretty quick. We lived in Seattle for 6 years and never felt like it was home or that the people had a sense of community (at least in the part we lived in, I'm not saying that for all of Seattle). It turned out that our area had a lot of transient residents who would live there for a few years and move on. This really kills the concept of roots. Now that we're in New England and have lived here a while, we can't walk down the street without people honking at us (in the friendly way, sheesh!), go to the grocery store without getting into a conversation with a friend/neighbor from somewhere, etc.

But, you have also have to do your part, too. Talk to your neighbors, walk over and chat while doing yard work, help someone with a project, all that stuff. Go to the little annual festival in town, if you have one, and chat up the fire department. Use the library and get to know the librarian (Walden, get a paper bag and stop hyperventilating...). Give cookies to the new neighbors. Send condolence cards when someone on your street dies. In other words, be neighborly. It's hard to get roots if you work all day, go in your apartment and close the door (not saying you do that, but you get my drift).

Well, the weather in the winter sucks around here, but I don't want to leave. It isn't even an option at this point. There are too many nice decent people around here who would notice if we fell off the face of the earth. That beats Florida any day.

Robin

[chas]

I wonder if the feeling of belonging to a place has something to do with one's upbringing and the tradition in the family. For a number of generations my family had split ups and people had to move for one reason or another. . .

Move to a small town in New England. . . .

My father's family had been in New England (mostly Maine) for >300 years; my mother's for at least 200, in Rhode Island and Connecticut. A couple of my mother's sisters are in California; I'm in the first generation in which there's been any significant settlement outside New England. I still miss musters, other types of town parades, all that sort of stuff.

Anyone read Main Street by Sinclair Lewis?

[BigDavy]

Hi Aderyn_du

Come to Scotland and be welcome

I am in the opposite camp to most Americans. Most of my ancestry would have lived within 100 miles of the Scotland / England border, for as far back as it could possibly be traced. At a guess it could go back to the beaker people and certainly to the bronze age. This makes roots a moot point, I am part of this land, blood and bone no matter where I end up.

David

[aderyn_du]

This makes roots a moot point, I am part of this land, blood and bone no matter where I end up.

Wow. That's such a gorgeous statement!

[mamakash]

I've lived in New Jersey my whole life but will be moving with my mom to where she grew up. I'm really starting to look forward to it as 32 years in the same spot has gotten too familiar. And it lacks the country farm lands it once had. So, what is home? My mom's family is up in NY, and while quite a bit of it has moved or the older generation passed away, you'll still occationally bump into a relitive or an old familiar face. Sometimes I feel it's a smaller world there, even though it's considered city. And the nightly news is about the local community! No one gets flustered over a snow shower! In fact, the news is so laid back and calm, it kinda makes me think of Canada . . . or how at least Michael Moore protrayed Canada's news. What a change from New York City stations.

[Walden]

Use the library and get to know the librarian (Walden, get a paper bag and stop hyperventilating...).

I'm not hyperventilating... the librarians here in town know me. Keep your friends close and your librarians closer, I always say.