So my new house is old. And by the railroad tracks. I was walking out to our basement laundry room the other night (trains rumbling) and wondering if back when riding the rails was a more common occurrence, if the lady of my house was a feeder of hobos. She probably got them all the time.
I've also been thinking lately about transience. I finished Housekeeping recently and haven't thought all the way through it. The book tells the story of a couple of generations of women in a family. It tells of the desire to wander. The narrator of the book describes it as a method to disappear...I haven't thought through it...and East of Eden also plays with wandering. Just wanting to go, coming back a little more quiet and a little more distant. I don't know how much I can empathize with these wanderers--I'm too big a fan of showering and feeling safe. (Though the world is calling my name.)
On the other hand, I've been trying to balance two urges in me: the urge to sell all my stuff and move to Latin America, and the urge to scratch together a down payment and buy and rescue an old house (it takes me twice as long to meander my way home because I'm using half my brain to check out real estate) and plant a garden. I've posted about this.
K, into this hardly formed fog of thought enter James. I'd heard tell of him--a friend of my landlord, took care of most of our remodel and currently taking care of our plumbing. We were chatting over a couple of leaking pipes, and it came out that he was a wanderer of sorts. ("Where are you from?" "I'm not..." etc.) I decided to check some of my theories of wandering against him, see where he stood and it turns out not only does he ride freight trains, not only is he trying to sell his house and find somewhere more mobile to set his stuff, he studied hobos in college. He was an anthro major whose emphasis was wandering. What!?! I love my life.
A couple of nuggets of wisdom: first, this area of the world was known as the "milk and honey belt" to hobos in the 20s and 30s (and beyond probably). Utah valley was famous for its generosity in feeding and employing wanderers.
Second, James argued that the wandering/settling impulses aren't mutually exclusive, but actually stem from the same urge: to be able to control one's environment. They're just different ways of going about it. (This makes sense, btw, in my situation. And makes sense of the fact that when I feel most out of control is when I want to leave or find a place to stay.)
He also had some interesting things to say about the male/female impulses to wander (that women--and this is general but also researched--stop wandering as soon as they have kids. Not that it's impossible, but that some switch seems to get thrown) and about people's reactions to his riding trains. Men's eyes get all faraway looking. Women are generally appalled. Also, that hobo cultural forms resemble almost exactly earlier tribal cultures...and he talked about how men always seem to want to wander, and it's only a big problem when, as in American society, they're not allowed to come back. I want to keep chewing on this assertion.
Sometime I want to talk about women (not) in road novels and the implications of this. James didn't agree, but I think I didn't establish the levels of the metaphors I was playing with clearly enough.
A couple of personal things I realized: my dad is a hobo at heart. The wandering, the very low-maintenance survival habits, etc. I'd like to discuss this with you (=mostly family, but also interested parties) sometime.
I've dated a lot of hobos. In fact, that might be the only thing that most of my exes have in common, in one way or another.
If you're a boy, are you a hobo? Is that the issue here? Or am I just good at spotting them?
Anyway.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Right Side at Least
Posted by Kjerstin Evans Ballard at 8:18 PM
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11 comments:
I don't know if I'd call myself a full-on hobo, but I definitely have hobo tendencies. Aside from the faraway look I imagine I got in my eyes when I read about James riding the rails, at least twice a month I fantasize about packing a large backpack, putting on sturdy shoes, and walking away. North or south. I think that's mostly because I haven't been there (I've been west). But south leads to places like Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia, accessible via the Appalachian Trail. North leads to Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine--New England! And I want to walk there and walk around.
I fantasize about it twice a month. I seriously consider doing it once a month.
As far as your point about women in road novels--I have some thoughts formulating about it, but nothing solid. I'll get back to you.
Frits is a hobo, through and through. I can give you more details over the phone, but he has spent his whole life wandering, literally and figuratively. Once, a few years ago, he packed a bag and headed out into the record breaking heat and humidity in the Philly suburbs and walked the ten miles from our house to the nearest state park. There, he set up a tent and fasted for nearly three days before packing everything up and walking home. He was probably about 60 years old when he did this. On his way back, a cop pulled over to talk to him and tried to insist on giving Frits a ride home, but dad kindly refused.
And that's not out of the norm for him. I'll have to mull over my own wandering tendencies, but I can tell you that (maybe because my dad and brother are both very much this way and so it's what I'm used to?) I definitely gravitate towards friends and guys especially who also like to wander. But I'm beginning to think everyone has that tendency
Housekeeping huh? Robinson is really into the whole idea of what "home" is. Think about it... Housekeeping, Gilead, and Home. Three novels about wanderers (Sylvie, Lyla, Jack) and those who do not wander. What does it mean to come home, what is home... home to stay? Stay for a little while? Etc. She's awesome.
I am not particularly a wanderer. I'm too purposeful for that. I like traveling, but I like traveling with some sense of stability. I like to KNOW that I will be able to eat more than twice in 72 hours, you know? I do all of my "wandering" vicariously - East of Eden, On the Road, Housekeeping, etc.
It's a fascinating thing - wandering, but depending on what your goals are I don't think it's always a good thing. I agree that men seem to be more prone to it, for whatever reason, and I think the female wandering stops with kids for reasons that are eminently practical: it's hard to wander around and take care of someone (or a few someones) else. Wandering demands that you are only on the lookout for number 1. I wonder if that's why Sylvie's wandering tendencies didn't really stop - the girls weren't actually hers, after all.
Also, I don't think ALL men are wanderers, per se. My dad, for instance, is not a wanderer at all. Neither was my maternal grandfather. I think everyone goes through phases (or a phase) of being a wanderer (thus people join the army, get jobs that require them to travel, take roadtrips before going to college... I even think going on a mission can sort of - and I do mean sort of - be a result of the pull to wander), but I think that there is also really something to be said for stability and commitment. I don't think wandering is at all problematic when you haven't made commitments to others, but once you have, well, I think you should be responsible enough to keep them. I, for one, am pleased with the American cultural demand that men stay - to take care of their families (in whatever way that is done), to help in their communities, etc.
Dr. Cronin said something to me though, just after I'd read Housekeeping for her class that I thought was interesting. The whole mortal experience is one of wandering. Of trying to find something that really isn't here. We have a hard time with the concept of earthly homes because they are not our home... I thought that was perceptive.
Anyway. Interesting post Kjerstin.
Great post. I read Housekeeping this summer as well as Glass Castles. They are interesting taken together.
Your Dad is a hobo. Why does he walk when he could drive? Very interesting observation. And yet he stays near enough his children that he can wander past them occasionally. As long as he doesn't have to live with them.
I have to keep thinking about women and children. I want to talk to you about this, ironically, at Thanksgiving, the most "rooted" kind of celebration there is.
Wait, Thanksgiving isn't the most rooted holiday there is! It all started with people 'wandering' across a stinkin' ocean and continues to force people to travel various distances to see each other. If any holiday is rooted, I'd say it's 4th of July. It's always on the same day, even. :)
(p.s. word verification: worry..eep?)
It's no surprise that I'd fall on the woman side of things, once again. I'm appalled by the idea of riding the rails. I also have a general sense that wandering is just a way of getting out of problems easily.
I'm not sure about the same root for wandering/settling. I think wandering is more a desire to relinquish control of environment, maybe because other attempts to control failed, so you just get up and go, knowing that weather, the kindness of strangers, and any other number of factors will now determine your daily life.
As usual, though, I'd like to bring Mormonism into this discussion. I think the culture breeds a conflicted sense of wandering. On the one hand, we're told to strengthen homes, to plant, to produce children, build communities and so on. But then we mythologize missionaries, pioneers, the Lehites and so on.
Do women stop wanting to wander after childbirth, or just stop doing it. The latter makes sense, as it's a bit complicated to ride the rails with babe-in-arms. But, is the urge still there? Similarly, you could look to at what stage in life men stop wandering. My gut reaction is that they stop once they have encumbrances.
Amanda- 'eep' does equate to worry, was that the question?
Alea-A couple of things: first, I think that the wander/settle impulses in Mormon history/culture aren't so polarized as all that. Lehi and co, after all, wandered in families, and missionaries as companions, which seems to diffuse the get-up-and-go sufficiently as to transform 'wandering' into something else. (Still wandering, but not quite the same as going it alone.)
Also, according to James, women stop wanting to wander. He said that he'd planned on and been more than willing to keep up his hobo ways even with a kid, but that in women the desire just disappears, independent of ability.
I think that James's idea is ridiculous. This may be do to the fact that I don't believe in traditional definitions of gender or because I also probably fall on the female mind aspect of things but if anything I have seen the opposite.
Most of the people I know who seem to always want to get up and go or drive until it feels right to stop have been females. When I am feeling awful I just want to stay inside my house and recuperate or escape or whatever I need to do. Or, I want to run home. The thought of traveling makes me sick and I absolutely hate to move.
Mostly I just think that people are people and some want to run and some want to stay.
Dear The Goob:
You would. :)
Oh. My question from a recenter post answered. How odd, but then again, not at all.
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