Rylee Knips

Home
The Earth spins and spins in constant repetition. The continents change position slowly. However the Earth is constantly revolving; it is constantly changing position. We are this Earth. We are constantly moving from home to home. We are constantly spinning our lives so that they seem the same as they always were. We have the same schedule, sleeping during the night and awaking at dawn, but when we look closely, we are always changing. The things around us are always changing. When we think of home, the immediate thought is where we live. We are given a set of numbers and a name combined with path or street or avenue. We memorize this address until it is becomes imprinted in our minds forever like a crater. But this address changes when we move, when our Earth revolves, and more and more craters are added to our memory until it is impossible to decipher that which is home. By the time we come to this occurrence, we come to the realization that home cannot be a physical place. Home is merely the familiarity and comfort you have when you are at this place. Home is the consolation you receive from repetition of actions and emotions. It is the people and animals and objects we adore. Home is the constant rotation of the Earth and the recurrence of experience. The problem is that we are revolving and evolving. Change prevents us from returning to a previous home. We may revolve around the sun until we come to the same position, but by that time, we will have shifted our tectonic plates a couple inches and accumulated more greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. Since we are not the same, our home is not the same. This is the problem that Odysseus faces in the Odyssey. He spends twenty years in war and on his journey back to Ithaca. However during this time, he has become an honorable warrior, a brilliant strategist, and a brave explorer, and Odysseus house in Ithaca has been taken over by suitors for his estranged wife Penelope who spends all of her time mourning his absence. Telemachus, his son, is now a young man confused by his fathers lack of attendance. Odysseus doesnt miss this. He misses the way the sun would raise over Ithaca every morning. He misses his wifes sweet kisses. He misses speaking with his parents and knowing how everything should be. He misses the comfort and familiarity that he used to have before he left for the Trojan War. Odysseus is bored with the constant threat or temptation. He is done with the years spent with Goddesses like Circe and Calypso in the places where they feel comfortable. He misses having a family that doesnt need pleasing: a family that adores him because he is the great Odysseus. When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, he must hide from everything that he loves about it. The suitors conceal the house he knew and Athena hides even the landscape. He cannot return home. He can only adapt to this new one. Like the Earth, Odysseus must try to find comfort is his rotations as he revolves around constantly changing.