TRIO Eighteen: Rod Amis

G21 Contributor

"...You'd Be HOME Now!"

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During the holidays, when she is inclined to encourage me to join her in Bermuda, my mother has the habit of suggesting that I "come home."

This usage of the word "home" has always made me uncomfortable.

I've always felt that the word was being used in the same manner as those once-ubiquitous real estate billboards that insisted: "If you lived HERE, you'd be HOME now!" Or the more recent Jamaican toursim broadcast advertisements which encouraged us to "come home to Jamaica." No; no.

Bermuda is my mother's home, but not mine.

In fairness to her, I must admit that the words "home" and "Bermuda" have always been interchangeable to her. I have often envied her that definitive sense of a place in the world.

TRIO, our thrice-weekly commentary column: ROD AMIS " ...YOU'D BE HOME NOW!" FLISS USSHER's LONDON CALLING! kicks off the HOME ISSUE. Your first taste of the second issue of our anniversary electric slide! TRIO, our thrice-weekly commentary column: THOMAS HART " `MAKE THIS YOUR HOMEPAGE!': DREAM ON LOSER!" VOX POPULI, YOUR reader-response page, is open-for-business again this week. Finally! Some letters that aren't about Thomas Hart! HOT LINKS (Not From Louisiana) bestows an all-new SILVER SURF AWARD! POWERSBOOKS features the JILL BIALOSKY interview! Another must-read from our Lit-Crit Guy in Ohio. ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in our HENNY YOUNGMAN series awaits you in THE HOUSE OF CARDS! TRIO: DAT ASS! RADIO RAHEEM explains why being an Ass-man is his private Guilty Pleasure. TRIO: ROBIN MILLER "G21 FOR DUMMIES..." You have to read it to believe it! JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences! CULTURE CAST looks at "THE WATCHERS'' who are part of your life if you live in any major city these days. You need to use The Message Board

Living in San Francisco, a city of refugees, my dissatisfaction with inappropriate uses of the word, "home," is intensified, I guess. Having lived in so many cities, I think I might have become unclear on the concept of "home." For example, I notice now that the face of downtown San Francisco is marred by gaping holes. Orange netting, and the yellow plastic ribbons used to herald police warn-off areas surround the hole where workman with shovels and jackhammers tear up the pavement in order to lay fiber optic lines. Like so much else in the world, these signs of progress, of how our captains of industry are embracing the 'Net, are easy to ignore during steady downpours of rain, as we have had here in California most recently. But during this respite from El Nino, three entire days without rain, the birds singing like divas during the early mornings again, it's a joy to be out of doors and I notice the things that mar that joy.

Some people would say that having spent most of the last decade here in San Francisco should make me feel at home. I can't buy that. I knew Denver, Cairo(Egypt,) and Middletown,(Connecticut) much better than this city, and lived in all those places for less time.

Familiarity, after all, is the beginning of having a sense of place.

I have a friend who says that home is the place you can return to and be accepted for(as?) who you are. I often wonder where such a place could be for me.

Admittedly, that's not a concern exclusive to myself. Most writers I know are involved in putting one word after another because of an inherent existential alienation. We are creating worlds, with words, in which we are more comfortable than this one.

Where would Oscar Wilde feel at home? How about Ralph Ellison? My point is that I accept a certain sense of rootlessness going along with my avocation. But knowing this in no way mitigates a personal longing for feeling at home somewhere in the world. Soft touch...

All philosophical pyrorations aside, preparing for this article I had a troubling revelation. Again, it came from a spoken characterization. I agree with John Gardner's Grendel; we throw Reality out in front of us every day with the words we employ. Here's a glimpse of what I've thrown out in front of me every day for months:

A friend telephones and greets me by asking what I'm doing.

I'll reply that I'm working on this web magazine or looking at some other site.

He or she will say something to effect of: "Jeez! You're always on the Internet!"

I'll throw out this (characterization of) reality: "This is where I live."

IF this is actually my home, this ethereal medium, then my life can either be considered deprived or revolutionary. Don't you think?

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