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