askandanswer | (no subject)

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fandom: star trek

(no subject)

What do you miss about home when you're not there?

[There's a thoughtful pause, and she smiles.]

Wherever "home" is for you--is it a place? Something else?

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[This is something Hardison's been thinking about a lot, lately.] Home is with my team, I think. And when I'm not with them...I don't know what to do with myself anymore. Stuff that I used to do by myself just isn't the same.

[She nods.]

I feel the same way about the people I work with. Wherever they are, is home.

I don't have one. I have places I've lived, some longer than others, people I have lived with, and I have family I am close to, but home, to me, is an affective space relating to body and memory. Belonging to a displaced diaspora means that my ancestors had one, were removed. And now we wander.

It doesn't bother me. I've been lucky enough to live all over the world.

What about you?

I think when I think of "home" as an abstract or traditional concept, I think of Earth as a whole. I grew up in New Orleans and spent my summers and a lot of school holidays with my grandparents near Nha Trang; I studied in North Carolina and California before I enlisted.

But as time passes I find I'm thinking of "home" less as a specific physical place, and more as a sense of the place where I belong. Which would be on my ship, with my crew.

I'm guessing you aren't restricted to Earth, then. It makes sense the ship would become your constant, in a way, if I can speculate.

You're right. I work in deep space.

And that does make a certain sense. It's where I live and work, no matter our surroundings. I suppose it does become my home.

[Yeah, so... this is kind of hitting Rikki hard. She takes a second to get her head together.]

- The people, mostly. I miss the people.

I understand--I think I'd miss the people too, when I was away from them.

Yeah, it's... hard. [Well, this is a really depressing topic.]

[ Christine studies her a moment, and then a smiles a small, sympathetic smile. ]

...Sorry. Difficult subject?

[She snorts out a laugh.] You could say that. It's fine, though.

Well, still. I could've given some more thought to the range of reactions that question could provoke.

I don't suppose it's anything you want to talk about?

Half a place, half a concept. The further I go, the more abstract it gets.

Further... in time? Or in distance, away from it?

Both — but mostly distance, I think. The cultures change more and more. It gets harder to adapt.

( they're such a hipster, they're even in the most ironic diaspora of all time. )

I can imagine that if there's less and less you... I don't know if "recognize" is the right word. Less that seems familiar, maybe? Then the idea of "home" becomes more abstract.

...It's just a thought. Your experience may be entirely different.

May I ask about the distance? Have you traveled, or had to leave a place?

— I travel.

( well, it's not a lie. )

That sounds right, though. You start wishing for something more vague than 'that house I grew up in,' or 'the beach I once bit a seagull at' — you feel more like a ghost, like that person before never really exists.

[ She nods, smiling at them. ]

I think that's it, yes. It used to be, when I thought of home as a place, I thought of very specific places. The house where I grew up, my grandparents' house, the dormitories at the schools I attended.

I travel, too--great distances, my work requires it. And I find the farther away I get, the more general the idea of home as a place is. It's gone from specific buildings to cities to the planet as a whole. Sometimes it's even as simple as "very far away from where we are now."

[ ...Sorry, she can't help asking: ]

Did you bite a seagull once?

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