HOME, part 1
by Joan Evans - February 2002

I have had a lot of different home addresses in my life. I have lived on N. 60th Street, Pumpkin Lane, and Mountain Pass Road. I have also lived on a Drive, a Place, a Court, a Boulevard, an Expressway, an Avenue, and an Alley. By the time I went to college, I had attended eight different schools; the longest time I had spent at any one school was two years. During the first eleven years of my marriage, I moved nine times. I had a break from moving while my children were in school, actually living in the same house for seventeen years. But after they went off to college, my wandering resumed. Recently, during one calendar year I moved twice inside the same zip code and discovered that the US Postal Service's computer database couldn't handle that maneuver. Suddenly all my mail was returned to the sender instead of being forwarded to my new address. I was incensed: after all, if I could do all the work of moving, the least the post office could do was keep track of me!

Moving has always been fun for me. Each new location has expanded my horizons. When we moved from New York City to its suburbs during my second grade year, I discovered the world of weeds and the joys of gymnosperms. When I switched from a public to a private high school, I traveled to school for two years by way of a 20-minute train trip along the banks of the Hudson River at its widest spot. Besides being a trip of mesmerizing beauty, the commute introduced me to river activities such as shad fishing, ice breakers, and bridge building. It also left me with a tremendous fondness for train travel and the ability to read a timetable with ease. When my family moved to Texas halfway through my high school career, I discovered, to my delight, that winter is optional.

Moving so often has given me an odd view of the world. One day when I was forty years old, I looked in a cupboard and was surprised to discover that the shelf paper was dirty. Until that day, I had no inkling that shelf paper had to be changed periodically. And movers have a saying that "Three moves are as good as a fire!" It is unwise to get too attached to any possession if you are going to be moving a lot. Items get lost, damaged, or irretrievably destroyed with each move. I still mourn the loss of my father's collection of classical piano music on long playing records that got dropped on the way from the truck into the house in Texas. One of the funniest near-disasters we had was when our most prized family possession, a concert grand piano, carefully packed in a special wheeled moving case to protect it on the move, got away from the movers and rolled down the steep hill from our house with the movers running after it in hot pursuit. Fortunately, they were able to catch it about a block away before it was damaged.

One consequence of moving so much is that one does not develop long-term friendships. If I had an argument with a friend, either we made up right away or the friendship was lost forever. Chances were that I would not be around during the next school year. Later when my children had disagreements with friends, I tended to allow them to abandon the relationship. But I learned from their experiences that the child who plays mean tricks on you in first grade may turn into a good and loyal friend by 7th grade. Age and maturity can help mend flaws in relationships, but learning that requires interacting with another person over a period of time-not possible for a person who moves every year or two.

Moving was somewhat awkward for me as a child because I was shy, because I did not have a built-in home group like an army brat has, and because I moved to different parts of the country. I had to swim in whatever pond I got thrown into-North or South, urban or rural, small prep school or large public one, corporate ghetto or country village. As a child I developed some strategies that helped me blend in quickly--my ambition was to appear to be a native of wherever I was living.
First, I always ate the school lunch. Doing so gave me a shared experience with the other students and guaranteed that I wouldn't be eating foods that seemed strange to my peers.
Secondly, I would try to blend in visually with the crowd. I would try to purchase any key wardrobe item that was popular and universally worn. This was often a type of shoes. Conformity was important to me because I was so tall that I tended to stick out.
Next, I would keep my mouth shut. Most people are not interested in hearing about the place you just moved from. Talking about one's former home just guarantees that everyone becomes aware that you HAVE a former home, that you are new to the community. And it takes time to pick up a new regional accent. (About two weeks if you have a good ear.)
Finally, when I got old enough to read pretty well, I would attach myself to a copy of the yellow pages and a local newspaper at each new location. Mining the Yellow Pages for information is a great way to learn about a new community.

My experiences moving so many times have been generally positive. The most important thing I have learned--along with all those addresses and telephone numbers--is that each new locale has its positive and its negative qualities and that I am a lot happier if I limit myself to enjoying the positive qualities and just ignore the negative ones. For instance, I really disliked the cold winters in upstate New York, but I loved tapping maple trees and boiling the sap to make maple syrup every spring. Arizona and life in the desert are an acquired taste, but people who live in Arizona are generally very happy, having moved there by choice, often from a place with a nasty winter climate like South Dakota. And one's body eventually does adjust to temperatures of 110°! But I am able to sustain this positive attitude precisely because I know that one day I will be moving again, that for me no address is forever….