Wednesday, November 28, 2018 // The Statement
6B

E

very 
semester 
starts 
with 
the 
same 
ice-
breaker: 
Where 
are 
you from, what year are you and 
what is your major? I always got 
tripped up by the first question.
I was born in Santiago de Chile 
but I left before my first birthday. 
I lived in in Pittsburgh for five 
years and by the time I was six I 
had already crossed into new state 
lines. I lived in Jonesboro, Ark., 
only to move a year later to Fayette-
ville, Ark., where I would live for 
10 years. I have spent the last four 
years in Michigan and I expect 
to spend the next seven months 
in Germany. Home, as a physical 
place, has never been something 
I can pinpoint in my mind. I can’t 
tell you what home looks like, but 
I can tell you what it feels like.
Home has always been an 
idea — it is my mom’s arms, her 
soft cadences, the smells of len-
tils cooking and my dad’s voice. 
It is these images that constitute 
my home because I have always 
left a place never to return.
I moved to Michigan while in 
the process of inventing myself. 
So, in an attempt to affirm who 
I thought I was, I hastily closed 

my chapter in Arkansas. I left in 
a flurry of emotions, and while I 
promised others I would return, 
I vowed myself to never do so. 
My story in Arkansas was an 
anomaly I wanted to let go of.
Yet, I found myself one Thanks-
giving Break in the Detroit Met-
ropolitan Airport with a ticket to 
Tennesee in hand. I sat at the gate 
and there I did the math I had 
avoided doing — it had been five 
years since I had been in Jones-
boro. As I boarded the plane, I 
didn’t feel like I was just flying 
back to the Natural State, it felt 
instead like I was going home.
I lived in Jonesboro, Ark., when 
I was six, and in this tiny town of 
75,866 residents I found my best 
friend and a family. Sierra has 
flaming red hair that glimmers in 
the sun, and in one of those magical 
coincidences of the universe she 
became my friend. I don’t remem-
ber much about my time in Jones-
boro, but I remember her. I spent 
most of my weekends at her house 
playing and eventually her parents 
became a part of my family. They 
easily adopted me. Their house is 
so ingrained in my memory that if 
I close my eyes I can walk through 

it remembering where the paint is 
chipped or the feel of the couch. 
This is what I was flying back to.
Janelle and Marcus, Sierra’s 
parents, picked me up from the 
airport — smiles adorned their 
faces, and in Janelle’s hands were 
two homemade chocolate muffins. 
These muffins were the flavor that 
greeted me every Saturday morn-
ing as Sierra and I ate breakfast. 
As I stood in the glimmering sun-
shine of the South, all the memo-
ries I had kept locked up began to 
overflow the banks of my mind.
I began to remember the South-
ern hospitality that had caught me 
off guard as I rushed around the 
airport hardly making eye contact 
and avoiding the five seconds it 
takes to say hello. I remembered 
the warm Southern air. I remem-
bered the house and all its noises.
The first hours I noticed I had 
forgotten how quiet Jonesboro 
was. I woke up my first morning 
to a silence I couldn’t remember. 
In this silence I began to stitch 
back up a past I had ignored.
Walking through the house, I 
remembered spending the morn-
ing in the window room gazing out 
to the vast open yard covered in 

autumn leaves. I remembered the 
nooks and crannies that Sierra and 
I discovered as we played hide and 
seek. I remembered sitting under 
the piano while Marcus played. I 
remembered the dining room and 
how I had learned the word vege-
tarian there. I remembered sitting 
in Michigan thinking of Janelle’s 
chair empty when she told me she 
had been diagnosed with cancer.
On returning home I realized 
the immense hurt I had caused 
myself. Being back allowed me to 
reclaim this past but most impor-
tantly to embrace it as part of who 
I am. Maybe my time in Arkan-
sas doesn’t make sense, maybe 
there were episodes in my child-
hood there I wished had never 
occurred, but by ignoring those 
I was also shutting out home.
I was erasing my childhood 
with Sierra. I was erasing Janelle 
and Marcus who have never 
stopped inviting me back. Their 
small family, of quirky English 
professors and my best friend, 
were the ones who encouraged 
me to keep reading and writing.
For me home is still the 
idea but it is now also that 
house 
on 
Church 
Street.

On going home

BY MARTINA VILLALOBOS, COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE CHRISTOU

