Alef: The NEXT Conversation

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

By Nava Szwergold

When I think about going home I think of Philadelphia. As an adult I walk down the street, and see the places where I used to hang out after school: parks, diners, movie theaters. It makes me feel safe. Everything is familiar and yet I know that there will always be something new for me to find- new connections to be made and things to learn. This is my place and I don’t want or need to live anywhere else. But, it hasn’t always felt this way. In high school I could not wait to get away. I thought it was my destiny to go forth and start a life in a new city, just like my parents and my grandparents had done. Staying in the city I grew up in would show a lack of independence I thought, a lack of imagination.

When I was a kid, every month or so, my brother and I would pile into the car with our parents to go and visit the family in New York. We would fight in the back seat, drawing invisible lines down the middle of the car to mark off our space; My mom would threaten to turn the car around. Sometimes, the car would break down. Once across the final bridge or tunnel we’d begin our rounds- stopping in to see aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in all corners of the city. I assumed that when I grew up I would take my own kids away for the weekend to see their grandparents, somewhere else.

There’s a kind of “kid’s logic” that lacks a thorough understanding of cause and effect. What I realize now is that my parents and grandparents didn’t want to leave the places they were from. There were external factors that helped bring those changes about. Grave factors like Nazi or Soviet persecution, or just really inconvenient ones like a career opportunities in another city. The conversations that I’ve been able to have with family members over the past several years have helped me see how even the least traumatic of these moves has been a source of pain for someone.

Ok, so maybe it builds character; It’s cosmopolitanism to move around, to be spread out  but, I come from Philadelphia – the biggest small town in America, where it’s normal to have all your extended family in a 3 block radius and feel like you know every other person in a city of 1.5 million. Conveniently, I happen to love this city, and have the opportunity to stay, An opportunity my grandparents didn’t have for sure. I can fulfill this longing for place and groundedness, the same longing which I imagine fueled the movements of early Zionism as well as Diasporism.

As a young adult people expect me to move around, for the best job, the best school. Making a big city my home means I can do pretty well with all that stuff without going very far. Staying in one place gives me a greater opportunity to build community with other young adults. Without community, this time of life can be very isolating. Creating connection to place helps to sustain connections between people. For me remaining in this city where I grew up and building a community here is an original and creative process.

Read more posts from Issue 12: Aliyah – Going Home.

Photos provided by vic15 and Tony_The_Misfit,  licensed under Creative Commons

Tags: Going Home, home, Nostalgia, Philadelphia

Posted by Rafi, Tuesday, April 27th, 2010, 9:27 am, Going Home.