Which Way Home?

“Last night me and Kate, we laid in bed, talkin’ about getting out

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Packing up our bags, maybe heading south.’”

— Bruce Springsteen, My Hometown

A Childhood Memory

The heavy rain that had caused games to be canceled earlier in the week was gone, but it had left a mess behind at the elementary school where we played our Little League games. Since the baseball fields were still in poor condition, the league set up baselines in the part of the large yard that drained a little better. The weather had prevented the school’s workers from mowing the fields, so the grass we played in was tall.

As I stepped up to the plate, I carried the weight of not being very good at batting. But somehow my bat connected with the ball, and I took off toward first base. I should have been out, but the ball sailed over the first baseman and into the overgrown field.

Watching the first base coach wave me on to second was an unfamiliar sight. I rounded the base and set my sights on the next bag, and ran as fast as I could. A smile settled on my face as I reached my target.

The only problem was that my feet were not planted on the pitcher's mound. I had gotten lost in the weeds and headed toward the wrong white target. Instead of watching the next batter from second base, I headed towards the bench, called out for straying off the baseline.

The blow to my ego was slightly softened by the fact that, in the confusion, the runner ahead of me had scored. It probably was not credited that way in the scorebook, but in my mind, I had an RBI.

Go West, Young Man

It was a cold January afternoon when my girlfriend and I left my mother's house in the New York City suburbs. With nothing more than hope and my rock‑and‑roll dreams, we headed west toward Hollywood, California. It was not long before we realized that we did not have the map we had dutifully ordered from AAA. Once we made it to our first stop, we called my mother and confirmed that the map had been left behind during our emotional goodbye.

Navigating without the map was a sign from the universe that the path in front of me was not as clear as it seemed at the time. Like the field where I played baseball at my elementary school, it could become obscured, and sometimes my destination was not my intended target.

If I had seen things more clearly, I would have paid attention to the warning signs that presented themselves during that trip. It should have been evident that there were serious structural flaws in our relationship, as problems that first appeared would later reverberate throughout our marriage. The issues that eventually led to divorce were foreshadowed on that adventure.

But in many ways, I am better off for not having seen the path that lay in front of me. While the pain and anger of divorce can cast everything in a kind of reverse rose‑colored‑glasses haze, there were a lot of happy memories created during those years. And above all else, the marriage paid the dividend of two children. They alone are an impressive return on investment.

Failing Up

Since this is not written as part of a rock star's memoir, it does not give up the ending to point out that the path through Los Angeles did not end up exactly where it was originally envisioned. While as a night shift supervisor I do stay up to all hours of the night, my work is not done in front of thousands of screaming fans. I am lucky if I get the appreciation of my manager.

Even if the rock star dreams did not come true, it was the right path to take. Living in Los Angeles provided me with the opportunity to hone my craft, and I earned a vocational certificate from the Musicians' Institute. I created songs with other musicians, many of whom had been drawn to Los Angeles chasing their own dreams. I learned humility from being "booed" during a lackluster set on Gazzarri's infamous stage, and the pride of holding the crowd in the palm of my hand at the Coconut Teazer.

Following the path also led me to destinations I had not envisioned. Los Angeles was where I met my wife, and we blended our families. Finding my soul mate was only possible because of the decisions I had made to get to that point, including the choice to move 3,000 miles in search of a dream.

Last year, our family left Los Angeles to follow a job and my oldest children to the state of Washington. I will admit that I had a fleeting thought where I wondered if I was becoming the latest California transplant to leave the state with my tail tucked between my legs. Realizing that I was leaving with far more than I arrived with, it was hard to classify that as a failure.

I might have set my aim for second base, but I was sitting on the pitcher's mound. And I'm okay with that.

Going Home?

These thoughts are coming to me as I travel at 619 mph on an airplane back to New York. It will be nice to reconnect with some old friends and relatives that I have not seen since my last trip back nine years ago, and I’m craving a real slice of pizza. But does it feel like going home?

New York is the place where I was born and raised, but it has been 40 years since I packed all of my possessions into the back of a car and said a tearful "goodbye." My sarcasm-challenged daughter will tell you that that part of me is still firmly in place, and to this day, my wife makes fun of the way I say "quarter" and "drawer." But are these enough to anchor me emotionally to my birthplace?

If New York is not "home," where is it? Los Angeles is where I have spent the largest portion of my life, and it is said to be the only place where you can gain "native" status by living there for 20 years. Approaching the first anniversary of my move to Washington, I have already grown attached to the area’s natural beauty, especially as I experienced my first spring.

Perhaps it is none of these places. We have become a nomadic society, willing to move for jobs, a better cost of living, or even to seek out others who share our political views. With a lack of attachment to a place, maybe “home” has become an outdated concept.

Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.