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Howth—Sailboats and Seafood

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Today, we travelled to Howth. It is a coastal city, mostly surrounded by water. It’s not quite an island. Howth is beautiful. Our goal for our journey was to hike along the cliffs along the east coast of the peninsula and eventually end up at the summit. The views were incredible, hard to take in and process. At the summit, we had lunch at a place called Gaffney’s Summit Inn. The seafood was fresh, and the service was exceptional. There’s nothing like reward for a bit of hard work. Our hike wasn’t easy. It seems that people from all over walk along the trail and dine at the pub. Even our server appeared to be from somewhere else in Europe. This little coastal town must attract and entertain tourists year-round. The scenery, views, and climate (at least as we experienced it today) create a welcoming atmosphere, constructing an interesting and diverse place. Howth is a place of destination. It attracts hikers, academics, lovers, and the like. As hunger began to set in, the Summit Inn became an even more attractive destination.

As we finished up lunch and headed down to sea-level, we saw beautiful houses and freshly manicured lawns and shrubbery. Eventually, we found the water’s edge and all sat staring out into the Irish Sea. When we first arrived to the cliffs, I noticed the sailboats harbored in the middle of town. Now, after a long walk and satisfying meal, I contemplate the uses of these boats and the lives of their captains. Howth is a place of occupation. We walked around where the boats were docked, passing piles of empty sea nets and crab cages. I wonder about the day’s catch. Did the day yield a successful bounty or did the fishers return empty-handed and disheartened? The budding greenery encroaching on the sailboats creates an interesting visual representation of the relationship between the natural and the human.

 

Summit Inn—Howth

 

Sailboats in Howth

 

Windy Ridge Farm

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Farm Picture

Home is a difficult concept for me. I’ve moved a lot throughout my life and there’s never really been one physical location that I could point to and call “home.” Most of my definition of the concept of home revolves around identity rather than place. Wherever my family is, that’s where I call home, and the places that I most strongly associate with family are the places most likely to be identified as home.

For years, Windy Ridge Farm in Union, West Virginia was the place I looked to as home. It was my mother’s parents home and, while my mother and I only ever lived there intermittently, my grandparents had lived there for decades by the time I was born. It was a reliable place—a place that I thought I could always go back to. Its rolling limestone hills, stolid cattle, and brilliant autumns were there for me any time I turned my back on a new old place of residence.

My grandfather fell ill in my late teen years and he and my grandmother moved into a new house in Charleston, West Virginia so that he could be close to a hospital. He died in that house and, though she maintained ownership of Windy Ridge, my grandmother never moved back to it. Over the course of about a decade, the farm fell into heavy disrepair. Every time I visited it it looked more and more like a funhouse mirror image of home. Last year my grandmother sold the farm to an out-of-stater.

The last thing my family did before leaving after packing our belongings was say goodbye to my great-grandparents graves in a cemetery looking backward onto the farm. They had only really lived in Union for a short time before dying. They had essentially moved there to be buried there. Close to family. Their gravestones were the only ones in the entire town that belonged to relatives of mine. It really put the concept of “home” and “belonging” into perspective for me when I saw their little graves surrounded by row after row of the same names that had nothing to do with mine. To me, Windy Ridge was the most permanent origin I could point back to. To the people of Union, my family had nothing to do with that old farm. They were a blip on the radar. Here and then gone. And my great-grandparents saw it as the end of their lives. Place is Proteus. It changes constantly for every person looking at it and no person could ever agree with another about what they’re looking at, even if they think that they’re looking at home.

Crossing the Line

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Ocoee Street After reading Creswell’s chapter, I realize that this is more of a space than a place.  My hope was to get a picture from the middle of the road, but the noon traffic made that an impossibility.  Ocoee Street is a space of movement that defies pausing.  Instead, it is a boundary between two very important places in my life.  It is the movement across this line that lends the road significance.  In the foreground of the photo is a sign for Centenary Ave.  This is my childhood street, the neighborhood I grew up in.  In the background, across the border, is Lee University, where my parents have both worked for over 40 years and where I went to college.  Ocoee Street is the demarcation line between these two places and carries layers of significance for me, my family, and my community.

As a kid, Ocoee Street was literally the boundary line.  I had a lot of freedom and was often allowed to roam with my friends.  But there was one rule: do not cross Ocoee Street.  Of course, as I grew older, I was allowed to cross, but by then it had, for me, come to be a symbol of adulthood.  My freshman year of college, I was determined to move onto campus.  Yes, the dorm I moved to was about three blocks from my parents’ house, but the move across Ocoee Street personally marked my transition into independence and maturity.

For my family, this road also delineates the private from the public.  Centenary Ave. is “home”, while Lee is “work.”  Most people have to drive between work and home; the boundary line between the two is broad and may contain a variety of other significant places.  For my parents, this road is the commute.  It is a distinct line between the public and the private.  I also suspect that this is part of why I was not allowed to cross the road as a child.  I belonged in the private sphere of my parents’ lives and could not just show up at their offices any time I wanted.

Finally, this is a boundary line for my community.  Although Lee University plays a large part in our city’s economy, there is a great deal of tension between Lee and the rest of the town.  You may notice that the top of the street sign in the photo marks Centenary Avenue as part of the Historic District.  As Lee grew, the community became increasingly concerned about demarcating where the university could and could not expand.  The creation of the Historic District was one of many attempts to keep the school at bay.  In this way, the boundary line has caused complications for myself and my family.  As members of the Lee community and the Historic Neighborhood Association, my parents have had to work hard to walk the tight-rope of line between the two places and their separate interests.  When I was in college, people around town would often ask me if I went to Lee.  It seems like an innocent question, but I understood the underlying tensions implicit in their asking.  I would often reply, “Yes, but I’m also from here.”  Sometimes, that answer sufficed.  “I am one of you,” it said.  Sometimes, though, it was returned with a scowl.  To some, it meant “I am a traitor.”

Although Lee continues to expand, it has never crossed Ocoee Street.  It is a complicated victory,though, as the expansion tends then to raze the lower income neighborhoods north of campus instead.  Navigating these various tensions and understanding the meanings of the places that I inhabit and how to modify my behavior crossing over boundary lines has been an intrinsic part of my upbringing.  It also gives meaning to this between space, even it one can’t stop and appreciate it.