Everyone’s From Somewhere

Map of Reno

On this the last day of August, is my only post for August.

It’s been busy.

I don’t much like that word — busy, not August — but it’s good shorthand, and right about nowshorthand is most welcome.

In August we

got new flooring in the kitchen and bathroom
had the entire interior of the house repainted
drove approximately 1400 miles for holidays
received children back to home from summer
started back up at school (kids) and school (M)
started a book, the first full draft a year away
signed on with a major new freelancing client

Happy Labor Day.

With all this activity, I’ve been thinking (again) about place. When one’s place is changing radically and/or a moving target, this may not be so odd. I want to enhance this commonality by stating the obvious:

Everyone’s from Somewhere.

I know. But

There’s no there, there.

and

You can’t get there from here.

were already taken.

Everyone’s from somewhere. I realized this in thinking a lot about Reno, which is one of the places we drove, and a little less so about Monterey, the other place we went this month. I don’t think about Reno much, and before doing so would have assumed others don’t either. Except there are some people living there, and they probably do it often. Everyone’s from somewhere.

To me, Reno is a sad little town, as dismal as Las Vegas but without the bright and distracting lights. It’s also hot. And it’s not Tahoe — which is cold, beautiful, and near. At one time — the 19th century, I think — it was important, and perhaps even interesting. Even into the late 20th century Reno’s status as a place to go was fairly secure. Las Vegas without the lights, but Northern Californios had to gamble somewhere.

Now there are Indian casinos throughout our state, and you can gamble anywhere.

And you can win office and gamble with other people’s money right in Sacramento.

So why go to Reno?

We went for the GK Chesterton conference of the American Chesterton Society. We did not go to gamble, though we dutifully lost about 50 bucks in 27 minutes at a blackjack table in the Circus Circus up there. It is, as you will have surmised, not much like the Circus Circus in Las Vegas.

The conference was swell and I met a lot of great people who like Chesterton. M and I enjoyed ourselves and each other, away from our place, which is, well … not Reno.

But Reno itself did not seem like a place to go, or stay very long once you got there. There did not seem to be much industry, beyond check cashing or strip clubs, and most people we saw seemed unhappy. Judging by appearances, which many say one should not do. But of course one does, at least at first.

At second glance, and second and third thought, though, there were a few elements to recommend itself, and to recommend to others. M found great food at chic restaurants. I still don’t know whether they are the front or back end of a boom, and the difference is crucial, but they are there. Then too … everyone’s from somewhere.

People live in Reno and call it home.

Jesus this is sounding jejeune but what do expect from a blog of partially digested bits of beef?

I only want to say that while sometimes it can seem there’s no there, there … there most certainly is to the people who live in Oakland. Or Reno.

And even if sometimes you can’t get there from here … perhaps just maybe you can get here from there.

Because here from there is my home.

Just like Reno is to those who stay.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

You’re Doing It Wrong

A friend once recounted how a mutual acquaintance of ours had told her God spoke to him, which he meant both literally and verbally. It’s enough on one point to note the gent didn’t say God spoke with him — which wd seem to be preferred, all things taken together — but that isn’t what I’ll

Read More »

No Prizes for Subtlety

It was the sort of place you wouldn’t be found dead in; the guy on the floor didn’t agree. Didn’t seem to like the floor — but it was in better shape than his face. Then someone had gone duck hunting on his chest. And either another guy was standing in front of me, or the

Read More »

Kim Possible

All the while watching Mad Men seemed to me the question was ‘Would Don Draper be redeemed?’ Breaking Bad was running roughly concurrently and the same question with an otherly alliteration was being posed: ‘Would Walter White be damned?’ The answer to the first was quintessentially postmodern, exquisitely childish, and thereby perfect — neither. Or, as an actual

Read More »

Finding Level

Relationship finds its own level. Generally it looks like we [and others] choose — a boy’s entreatment rejected, an attorney makes partner, 158 million of us vote — but there is a finality to much that we ostensibly do. This is how such absurdities as determinism gain purchase, how authors can talk and be misunderstood

Read More »

Related

On (Not) Using Words

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. Quick now — who said that? Me. Just now. Weren’t you paying attention? The saying is sometimes attributed to Francis of Assisi, most likely erroneously, as many are gleefully wont to revel in and reveal, should someone dare voice the view. To which the only

Read More »

16 Precepts

You have asked me how to pursue learning. I pass this along in response — Move from the easier to the difficult Be cautious of speech Be slower still in frequenting places of talk Embrace purity of conscience Pray without ceasing Love your home and to be there often Show geniality to all  Pay no heed to others’

Read More »

The American Poet

In evangellyfish circles there used to be a joke thus — Let us now turn to Malachi, the Italian prophet. The joke works if you say chi the way we’re supposed to say Qi if it’s the Chinese thing. And it works, though my Italian wife will die on the bruschetta with a hard “k”

Read More »

Trouble and Strife

Septic tank is Cockney rhyming slang for “Yank” which may suggest what trouble and strife is slang for. But it’s not fair of course, and good men, and most men some of the time, know she’s not only that. Upon noting once how, yes, “children are a bother,” Dallas Willard made the important philosophical distinction

Read More »