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Chuck Norris and a Morphed Sense of Home

Fluffy cloud behind barbed wire. Photo by Tui Cameron
Beware of cloud. Photo by Tui Cameron

For years now, I have floundered when people ask, “Where are you from?” I just don’t feel like I am from any one particular place. I suppose that is because I have moved so much – 16 times in the last 10 years, in case you want me to define “a lot.” So when people say, “Where are you from?” I am not sure quite what they are really asking. Do they want to know where I was born? My nationality? Where I graduated high school? Nowadays, I tell people I am from Seattle, even though that’s not accurate. It’s just that few people have heard of Port Townsend, or even Olympia – despite it being the state capital of Washington.

All this moving has morphed my sense of “home.” “Home” to me now is plural rather than singular. Home includes wherever I happen to lay my head at night. It also includes many other places; some that I have not visited for years, some that no longer exist. I also have a home feeling for all my relatives and dear friends across the globe. So when I get homesick, I feel it in fragmented ways.

I get homesick for Antwerp, Belgium for instance, for the cozy window seat in my apartment and the great people-watching the lively pedestrian shopping street below provided. I once saw Chuck Norris walking down that street, oddly enough. I didn’t think it was him, though. I just thought it was someone who looked like him, or as I said to my step-daughter at the time, “That guy walks like Chuck Norris.”

The way he was walking really did make him stand out from the crowd. While everyone else was strolling along, wandering in and out of shops, enjoying the sunny day, Mr. Norris moved like a man on a mission. No lollygagging for Chuck, I tell ya. The guy was definitely not taking time along the way to smell the flowers

So, as a joke, I poked my head out the window and said, “Hey, Chuck!” I didn’t say it very loud. Even so, he stopped in his tracks and peered up at me in the window. Have you ever looked Chuck Norris in the eye? It was kinda scary, at least until he smiled and gave us a wave, realizing that we had simply recognized him from afar and were not people he actually knew. Later, we joked that he must have been on his way to see Van Damme, since he hails from Belgium, and there was a bakery called Van Damme a few blocks away from us.

I still feel very new to Texas even though I have been living here for a year. Who knows how long I will be here, but I can feel myself starting to put down roots, or at least some tiny tendrils. It has been a long time since I felt connected to the place I was living in a deeper way than simply the fact that I was physically there. Feels kinda nice.

Tui Snider
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Published inTravel Photo Essays

8 Comments

  1. […] but it didn’t feel like home. As I mentioned during last year’s #Reverb10 in the post Chuck Norris and a Morphed Sense of Home, prior to coming to Texas I had moved 16 times in 10 years. After all that jostling around, I no […]

  2. Thanks for stopping by my blog, and congrats on your Chuck Norris sighting. I never know what to say either, so I usually stick with “I was born in Australia but now I live in Belgium”.

    This November seems like a long one – good luck with NaBloPoMo too.

    • mentalmosaic mentalmosaic

      Lydia: Thanks for visiting. I’ll stop by your blog again and see how this lengthy November is treating you over in Brussels!

      Jyllian: Hey, thanks for the compliments! It really encourages me. Re: Home status – I am still trying to figure out what all my personal criteria are for getting that ‘home feeling’ or not. I think you sum it up well with, ‘Maybe home is where you can fully exhale.’

  3. Hello again! First you are one of the folks I continued reading after Nablopomo last year. You have such a good looking site in addition to being good reading.

    I never felt like Illinois was home even though we lived there for four years. We’ve moved back to where I grew up and that felt like home immediately. SF, where I lived for 14 years took about a year. I still consider that a home. I lived in Oklahoma for a year and that didn’t make it to home status either. hmmm.. I thought home was where my family and cats were but I think it is more than that. Maybe home is where you can fully exhale.

  4. That Chuck Norris story is so funny! It reminds me a little bit of the time that I was at a charity event and Chris North was there. I’m not a big fan or anything, but he’s just so large and particular that I could not help staring at him. He caught me staring at him three times, each time I’d look away awkwardly, knowing I’d been caught stargazing.

    Can also relate to the question of home. Here in Australia, people actually seem to be from one place. But we Americans, when asked, all sort of stammer and say “Ohio-Maine-California-Nevada…” or whatever the case may be. Saying just one place feels like a lie and a betrayal to the rest of the places, I think.

    Wow … I just wrote the world’s longest comment!

    • mentalmosaic mentalmosaic

      C. in Oz: I didn’t know Noth was so tall. It must be weird for famous folks to be on the receiving end of stares all the time. Seeing famous people in real life can be disconcerting. Reminds me of that Woody Allen movie where a character comes off the screen and starts interacting with “real” people. It’s like a part of me doesn’t realize the people in movies and TV are real!

  5. “It has been a long time since I felt connected to the place I was living in a deeper way than simply the fact that I was physically there.”

    It is indeed nice to be able to feel rooted once in a while. Best of luck! :-)

    • mentalmosaic mentalmosaic

      The nice part of being un-rooted is that it keeps me feeling like a traveler all the time, which is fun. I feel more observant, somehow, when traveling. There’s still so much to learn about and explore here in Texas that I think I can hang onto that feeling even while putting down roots. Thanks again for all your comments. I’ll pop over to your blog today and see how it’s going in your neck of the woods. ~Tui

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