Home is not a Place, it's a State of Mind

Continuing with the ever so popular hometown cliché found in many of the other posts, I would have to go along and say that my hometown of Attleboro, MA is what I think of when I think of home. I was born in Attleboro and have lived in the city since I was two years old. I have never lived outside of Massachusetts. Thus, I have spent a good chunk of my life in the same familiar environment. For this reason, I have developed some very strong relationships with the people I grew up with. Many of the friends I have today from my hometown are people I have known my entire life. In fact, a majority of the people I have remained friends with are the same friends I had in first or second grade. We all grew up and went to elementary, middle, and high school together. To this day I remain in close contact with the people I went to high school with. There aren’t many people I have stopped talking to. For the most part, I still hang out with a lot of these people, especially in the summer when everyone is home from school. Sometimes people from my town joke (and I bet you’re even getting this impression from this post, and I don’t blame you) that Attleboro is a complete “townie” town and that it is almost inescapable. Just when you think you get away from it, it goes and sucks you back in. To a point, this is somewhat true. I have friends who have stayed close by (like myself) and have gone to school in Boston or Providence, but I also have friends who have gone away to school as far as Indiana or New Mexico. But I’m going to be honest. A majority of the people I know have ended up back in Attleboro even after they have graduated from college. I do not necessarily think this is bad thing either. It’s nice to have a strong, closely knit network of friends from the place you grew up. It’s nice knowing that you always have something familiar to come back to after being away from home for a while. And I think that’s what home really means to me – familiarity. Attleboro (or even Massachusetts in general) is a place where I feel very comfortable because I am so familiar with it. When I first came to Stonehill I felt like I had a slight culture shock, not because the people or the environment was so different (which it isn’t; Easton is basically Attleboro except it’s 20 miles north and has a hell of a lot less shopping), but because it was a place I was unfamiliar with. But eventually, I warmed up to it and adapted to it once I became familiar with it. Thus, I think home is maybe not a place, but a state of mind where you feel familiar, comfortable, and secure.

As far as my consciousness of home goes back, I would pretty much have to say that Massachusetts is as far as it goes. I’m a fourth generation Italian-Lithuanian-Polish-American and none of my relatives (or my immediate family) has kept in touch with any of the family we may have back in the “old country.” My ancestors from Italy/Lithuanian/Poland all immigrated to the northeast, and a majority of them ended up residing in Massachusetts. Both sets of my grandparents lived in Massachusetts, and both of my parents have lived in Massachusetts their entire lives. However, I would have to say that I can’t help but feeling some sort of strong connection with at least some of my ancestral heritage. For some reason, I’ve always felt a close connection with my Lithuanian heritage. It may have something to do with the fact that I was always closer with my mother’s side of the family (the Lithuanian/Polish side). Easter was always a big holiday. We always did the egg painting thing. (Lithuania is very similar to Russia culturally and Easter egg painting is kind of a big thing in many eastern European/Slavic/Baltic nations). My grandmother would make Lithuanian or Polish food every once in a while, and I also learned a few Lithuanian/Russian words here and there. Thus, I was never exposed to pure Lithuanian culture, but I did get a taste of it from visiting my grandmother (who was a second generation Lithuanian-American). I think this may be similar to how some African Americans feel about their ethnic heritage. Although they may not have a clear-cut understanding of their heritage, they still may harbor some feelings of connection with their ethnic heritage because they are aware that they are a descendent of that particular ethnicity.