Tag Archives: safety

Home: Sweet Home

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Home: Sweet Home

You can live in a tiny house, a mansion, or even in the woods. Any of these can be a home. Home has a special place in the heart and in the law. Both our idiom of “Home sweet home” and the ideas behind stand your ground defense share their foundation in the specialness of home. Well, what exactly is it? What takes a house and makes it a home? I want to understand the feeling that comes over me when I arrive home. So, searching for answers to this question, I began contemplating what it takes to make a home.

Last year, in early 2022, I was in Hawaii, checking out what it would be like to make a home there. I ditched that idea after a 3-month stint in paradise.  Then, in April 2022, after stopping in Tokyo to pick up my belongings, I returned to my hometown Atlanta. As I searched Atlanta for a place to make my own, I lived with my family. During the last few months of 2022, I bought a townhouse; now, I am making it a home. I have come to see these essentials in a home:  a sacred physical space, an aliveness, a place of belonging, and a sense of safety.

Waking Up in a Westphalia: Adventures

 

The Sticks, Bricks, or Stones

Inside the classic American home, there are perhaps two adults and maybe two kids. The family living in the traditional American home and their possessions are the second element of a home. They are the aliveness. Not the number of bathrooms nor the tile backsplash, but the gathered little details of daily life bring a place alive. A house needs activity to be a home. A home is a place that celebrates and supports the lives of the people living there. It is easy to note the absence of homeliness in an austere Airbnb or a poorly staged home for sale. They are spaces without a living, pulsing component. A home’s lived-in-ness is my favorite visual feature of a house. The toiletries, book collection, and mementos bring home alive. Those little lived-in details like an out-of-place coffee mug and family photos make a house a home.

Beyond the physical space and life items in it, two psychological aspects make a house a home. A sense of belonging is the first. This is home where the heart is. The idea that you can be who you are. That mental sense that you belong. Whether in the family or with roommates, that sense of relaxation in your surroundings. A home is where you can be comfortable in your skin. It is a place to recharge your spirit from the trials of life. I think people mean this when they recite “home sweet home.” It is coming, physically and metaphorically, into a place of love.

 

Patio over Courtyard

Take Off Your Boots

The building is in place, life knick-knacks included, a big heartful family is there, the last element to make a house a home is a sense of safety. It is precisely this sense of safety that one seeks in a home. For us humans to thrive, we need a safe place. This desire for safety includes knowing that your things will be there when you return. That people will not hurt you at home. Your home will protect you from the elements. It is a feeling that puts you in a state of calm. You can be at ease if you have normally been hyper-vigilant out in the world. The idea is that you can be in your home without being physically accosted, evicted, or bothered.

In this way, what is unnerving about having your home broken into it is a violation of your sacred space. When I visit my mother’s home, I appreciate her physical space. It is an enormous house. Our family photos remind us of the moments we celebrate. While I sense I belong, there is a strange quality at my family home. But it no longer feels safe. In reflecting on what we lost in the burglary last month, it is overwhelmingly the loss of a sense of safety.

In this feeling, then, I feel united with many other Atlantans. I sense the dis-ease around a family behind on rent. I can understand what it would be like to distrust a roommate. It feels odd to have traveled the world with relatively few mishaps and then returning home to so quickly lose a sense of safety. Beyond my immediate family, I find this loss of safety reflected of our country at large.

Hawaii Boat House: Not At Sea

Who is Safe Now?

My eyes are open to a very late recognition.  So many others live without that sense of security. I did not fully appreciate the depth and breadth of the Black Lives Matter movement. At it its crux, I now understand. The lives of so many Americans do not feel safe. I sense that the response is the growth in the abolitionist perspective. Mutual aid and community organizers are moving on this principle. Last month, `authorities` slashed tents and encampments in the South River Forest of Atlanta. The exact entity charged with the social (but not LEGAL duty) to protect is actively working to destroy a sense of safety in south Dekalb. If we do not feel safe in the American status quo, we must unite to create a sense of security. For me, then, this is the pressing question of our times. If life in the natural order is nasty, brutish, and short (according to Rosseau), where is the golden place where we can belong, be safe, and have the physical space to nourish our life activities?

An Atlanta Story: Bikes Howling Into the Moon as Cars are Stuck

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The September Full Moon

At midnight on a late summer Saturday night, hip-hop music emanated from the traffic-jammed cars surrounding me as I traveled west along Edgewood Avenue with a bike posse. On my first group bike ride, I was both excited and nervous. This ride was supposed to make it across town and back (over 10 miles). Most car-driving Atlantans would be rightly terrified of biking this route. Car traffic, hills, and potholes are enough to scare the average Atlantan. While I was safely helmeted and well-lit, without the collective courage of this group, I likely would have stayed in the boring bar where I started my night. On my own, I could not have imagined cycling across Atlanta. But for that September Full Moon ride, I could have lived forever in ignorance and boredom in my own hometown.

Our motley crew comprised a ride leader on roller skates followed by cyclists of every race and age. We snaked our way through bumper-to-bumper clubbing traffic on Edgewood as onlookers stared at us. Occasionally, a cheerful drunk would greet us with a smile and a “HEY there!” More often, though, car drivers actively ignored us. They were stuck in gridlock; we cyclists were free to weave between lanes. This small gloat eased some of my tension.

Along with the heat, enthusiasm began climbing out of me. Without the layers of car steel as separation, the bumping music sent electric pulses through my body. My Saturday night fever grew, and I felt part of the night’s clubby scene. My bike and I connected with the groove and felt like I was dancing along with the city.

A Night Ride from M+M

Watch for Plates, Grates, Poles and Assholes

That night, the road hazards that first presented themselves became more apparent. Car drivers seem either distracted, indifferent, or actively vengeful. As we made our way to the west side of town, the occasional smell of Mary Jane and intermittent car honks punctuated our ride. En route, we encountered a sharp left turn and an immediate incline which slowed us all down. A shiny red Dodge Charger got behind the slowest rider (me) and began revving its engine. The car was less than three feet away and intimidating. When I reached the top of the hill, the Dodge and I were waiting at the same red light. As we were stopped together, I told the driver NICELY that his revving was scary. He laughed and told me he was “playing.” Then, the light turned green, and the Charger rolled up his window and sped off. This driver was driving recklessly. I noted the license plate; the other cyclists were unphased. While he was wrong to drive like that, the flow of the evening was so good. The road called us onwards. I let it roll off me as we caught a pleasant downward hill into the west side of town.

 

Summerhill Mural

I recalled my high school prohibition from entering this neighborhood. It was not considered safe when I was growing up. Now, here in the West End, was another happening corner. A few cool venues caused slowed car traffic. A whole line of scantily clad ladies was waiting to get inside a club. Meanwhile, crowds poured from parking lots and meandered along sidewalks to bars and clubs. From my bike, the excitement was palpable. That first ride showed me my old town in a new way. The Beltline has impacted the city incredibly by connecting previously segregated parts of town. Now, there are open public spaces to hang out and chill. Walking paths meet with restaurant patios giving  Atlanta a lively and dynamic vibe. I notice this as I remember my readings about legacy residents being displaced by growing rents, especially in southwest Atlanta.

Full Moon Ride November- L5P

Helpful Humans

After we passed the new westside developments, our group found a monster incline around The Gulch. Here I got a real sense of group ride camaraderie. I was sure my clunker of a vintage Schwinn bike was malfunctioning. I found it lying around in my mother’s garage not too long ago. The bike needed TLC, just as I required instruction for going up hills. Oh my god, the HILLS in this town! As I struggled with matching pace with everyone else, I hopped off my bike to push it up the steep incline. A veteran older rider offered to help me. I dismounted and let him take a look at my gear settings. This form of volunteerism was both refreshing and encouraging for me. As I continued to ride, I noticed that there are many good bike Samaritans among the group rides.

No club, dive bar, or café could meet the zest of cycling through Atlanta’s entertainment district on a Saturday night. After the ride, I felt electric. Every cell in my body demanded I dance, move, groove. Thanks to this ride, I felt thoroughly connected and immersed in the city for the first time since my repatriation. While I developed my passion for bike riding in Tokyo, riding where I grew up is a whole new beast. Since that Saturday night, I haven’t seen the city the same way. Since then, I have been hooked.

Get out the Vote Ride (Midweek Roll)

Bikes with the Final Word

Atlanta does not immediately pose herself as a bike-friendly town. The tenor of car driving is aggressive and irreverent towards human life. The public infrastructure is entirely car-based. For the tiny bit of bike infrastructure, there is very little enforcement. Cyclists are left to fend for their own safety. While mutual aid and camaraderie are the natural results of being relegated by the car culture, the future is increasingly anti-car. Cars are pollutants, dangerous to pedestrian safety, and cost us a time tax. They increase the cost of street maintenance, take up too much parking space, and are expensive to maintain. As the city embraces more progressive demands from its residents, the gospel of bike life is spreading. Until then, Atlanta is a car town with an addictive bike habit.

 

On Boulevard NE and Edgewood Avenue