When home no longer feels like home (Austin, Pflugerville: travel, rent)

[twange]

There has been a lot posts about how much Austin is changing and depending on the perspective, often for the worst. I just read John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley - In Search of America" last week and came across a passage that made me think of this conflict. If you are not familiar with the book, in 1960 Steinbeck spent 3 months travelling the country in his camper-outfitted pickup truck with his dog Charley, making observations on the places he saw, the people he met, political/racial views and changes in the towns and cities.

Anyway, he wrote this passage after experiencing the huge changes in his hometown of Salinas, California:

"And isn't this the typical complaint? I have never resisted change, even when it has been callled progress, and yet I felt resentment toward the strangers swamping what I thought of as my country with noise and clutter and the inevitable rings of junk. And of course these new people will resent the newer people. I remember as a child we responded to the natural dislike of the stranger. We who were born here and our parents also felt a strange superiority over newcomers, barbarians, forestieri, and they, the foreigners, resented us..."

He goes on to say, "Sometimes the view of change is distorted by a change in oneself. The room which seemed so large is shrunk, the mountain has become a hill."

Also, "The place of my origin had changed and having gone away, I had not changed with it. In my memory it stood as it once did and its outward appearance confused and angered me. This must be the experience of very many in this nation where so many wander and come back."

Anyway, there's some perceptive thoughts from Steinbeck. That was almost 50 years ago.

[2lizards]

Great quote from Steinbeck! I need to read that book. Cannery Row is one of my favorite books of all time, and it deals with Salinas how he must have fondly remembered it. Thanks for the post.

[twange]

I just re-read Cannery Row a few months back. Great little book.

[mrsengle]

Wow Twange, that hit home with me. It's ironic that you posted that today of all days.

I'm one of the few that has just never felt at home in Austin. I live in Pflugerville (our neighborhood was annexed in January) technically, but most of my social interactions and place of employment are/were in Austin.

But today, I took my dog to the vet. My vet's office is a 2 minute car drive away from the house. I decided to take the long way home, so I stopped at a new little coffee shop I've been meaning to try out. I pulled up to the drive thru to order, and the girl taking my order noticed the dog in the back seat. As luck would have it, they kept dog treats behind the counter. We both got to have a nice treat, meet some nice folks, and support a small local business. It got me thinking about a few things around here. I like to go to the HEB in the semi run-down strip mall off the Pflugerville loop better than the overcrowded one on Louis-Henna. I always manage to get into a nice conversation with someone there, and the cashiers remember me. I like to rent movies at the Hollywood Video in the same strip center - they always help me find something if I ask, and they remember me, too. I get my oil changed at the Jiffy Lube across the road from that strip center, because they don't hassle me into getting a service I don't want.

Pflugerville gets a lot flack for being a not-so-great 'burb of Austin. Admittedly, it could use some improvement, but it's not ghetto. It's an oasis of normalcy in a sea of trendy. It just dawned on me, after visiting that coffee shop, that maybe what I've been looking for has been under my nose all along. I just wanted to be in a place where I could settle down and be part of improving my community, but most importantly, I want to feel like I belong.

Thank you so much for posting this - that made my day.

[twange]

Originally Posted by mrsengle

Wow Twange, that hit home with me. It's ironic that you posted that today of all days.

I'm one of the few that has just never felt at home in Austin. I live in Pflugerville (our neighborhood was annexed in January) technically, but most of my social interactions and place of employment are/were in Austin.

But today, I took my dog to the vet. My vet's office is a 2 minute car drive away from the house. I decided to take the long way home, so I stopped at a new little coffee shop I've been meaning to try out. I pulled up to the drive thru to order, and the girl taking my order noticed the dog in the back seat. As luck would have it, they kept dog treats behind the counter. We both got to have a nice treat, meet some nice folks, and support a small local business. It got me thinking about a few things around here. I like to go to the HEB in the semi run-down strip mall off the Pflugerville loop better than the overcrowded one on Louis-Henna. I always manage to get into a nice conversation with someone there, and the cashiers remember me. I like to rent movies at the Hollywood Video in the same strip center - they always help me find something if I ask, and they remember me, too. I get my oil changed at the Jiffy Lube across the road from that strip center, because they don't hassle me into getting a service I don't want.

Pflugerville gets a lot flack for being a not-so-great 'burb of Austin. Admittedly, it could use some improvement, but it's not ghetto. It's an oasis of normalcy in a sea of trendy. It just dawned on me, after visiting that coffee shop, that maybe what I've been looking for has been under my nose all along. I just wanted to be in a place where I could settle down and be part of improving my community, but most importantly, I want to feel like I belong.

Thank you so much for posting this - that made my day.

Great post. I'm glad it was useful to you. My mind has been sticking on things like that as I'm preparing to leave my home city for Austin. I don't know if Austin will turn out to be the place for my wife and I, but I do know that going somewhere else takes a lot of adjustment and sometimes you can't go back to what you had before.

[Daisey31]

It's so funny. It took me 15 years to feel 'at home' in SoCal, and now I am moving. I felt more at home in Austin in a week, then I have ever felt here. I moved to SoCal from Hawaii 21 years ago and just never really fit in. I felt Austin to be so warm and welcoming that I felt I was coming home rather than moving someplace new. Weird, huh?