Early & Alone #57: Home Is Where the Anchor Drops
My mom got me a sign that says “Home Is Where the Anchor Drops” and hung it on the hook on my bathroom door the day I moved in to my new apartment. I’ve been thinking a lot about what that means, and more broadly, what “home” means. For many people, it’s the house they grew up in or where they now live with their own families. Or maybe it’s the state where they lived the longest, the college campus they attended and now work at, a church, a bar. For some, it’s more of a feeling than a physical place. According to this sign, it’s where the anchor drops—a kind of stopping, a destination.
I have an anchor tattooed on my inner left wrist. When people ask, I tell them it’s because of the Rhode Island state flag, which features an anchor circled by stars above the state motto: Hope.
Hope is one of my favorite words, one of my favorite concepts. That might come as a surprise to a lot of people who know me because I can be very cynical. But at my core, I think I’m mostly a hopeful person. Without hope, I’m not sure where we’d be. Without hope, it would be pretty easy to get lost. The RI motto comes from a Bible verse: "hope is the anchor of the soul.” And that makes sense to me.
We think of anchors as good things, as that which steadies us, keeps us safe, keeps us from drifting away. It’s out home or our partner or our family or our faith or our creative outlet. But anchors also keep us where we are. They keep us from moving forward, from looking for new ports. And doesn’t hope do the opposite? Doesn’t it propel us rather than stop us?
It’s been clear to me that I’m searching for my home, both in the place I live and the people I spend time with. I’m looking for a space where I feel at home with myself. It hasn’t been an easy search. It’s still very much in process. But it’s also not a fixed idea. As life changes (and it does), our ideas of home change, too. We are not anchored to any one place or person or identity, as long as we have hope.
I am basically babbling at this point, but all of these thoughts ran through my head while looking at the little wooden sign on my bathroom door. I only have a couple small boxes left to unpack. Then I have to hang my art. Then I want to buy some rugs and a new kitchen table. Maybe some new bedding. But basically, I’m settled. And it’s starting to feel more like home every day. Gizmo is there, and my books, and my boxes full of memories, and my notebooks.
I dreamed for a long time of having my own apartment. And now I finally have one. I can decorate it however I want. The dishes I wash are the ones I used. I can clean the bathroom…or not. I can dance for Gizmo and be as silly as my mood dictates. This was also true in my first Providence apartment, but this place feels more like mine. Maybe because it’s in a house. Maybe because it’s more of what I pictured. It’s not perfect, but it’s what I have. And there’s nothing anchoring me to it. I can move forward when I’m ready. But for now, I hope this place will give me the shelter and comfort and quiet that Gizmo and I need.
Bright Spots:
I watched the documentary Class Action Park on HBO Max last weekend and wow. What a ride (literally). It’s about a water park in New Jersey in the 1980s called Action Park that was so dangerous, multiple people died, and countless people were injured. Highly recommend.
If you like the weird and absurd and for some reason haven’t seen it yet, you gotta check out both seasons of I ThinkYou Should Leave on Netflix. I have two words for you: Dan Flashes.
It’s not my typical jam, but I am really digging the new season of Dancing with the Stars. Maybe it’s the cast (Cody Rigsby, Matt James, Sporty Spice, Melora Hardin [aka Jan from The Office], Suni Lee, The Miz [who I remember as Mike from Real World like 20 years ago], the list goes on), or maybe it’s because the world is so bleak that I need all the sparkles and cheesy dance routines I can get. Also, JoJo Siwa is partnered with a woman as the first same-sex couple in the show’s history, so that’s pretty awesome.
One of my fav podcasts, “Invisibilia” is doing a season dedicated to friendship and I loved the first episode: “A Friendly Ghost Story.” It’s all about how we don’t have the same kinds of rules in friendships as exist in romantic relationships and how common ghosting is because friend breakups aren’t really a thing. It’s such a fascinating topic and one I could talk about for hours and hours.
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