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Hearthome Means Nevada
Aug. 29th, 2024 05:50 pmHere's some thoughts about my hearthome, how I found it, and what I intend to do with that information.
I've had multiple hearthomes over the years, some of which have stuck around and some of which has faded. The one that's most important to me right now is an ill-defined area of modern day rural Nevada, which can be best described as "it's mostly northern Nye County".
Most of it is uninhabited, but my relationship to it is definitely within the context of being a human being from there, not any sort of nonhuman desert wildlife. (Humans are a species of desert wildlife, if you ask me!)
I knew my hearthome is in Nevada pretty much as soon as I knew the term existed, but I thought it was in Las Vegas or some other part of the Mojave Desert. As Arcade Gannon, that's where I lived my adult life, so I have a feeling of belonging to that place. Now I classify that as just being... from there, no qualifiers other than "it was in a past life".
I never went to Nye County. It's quite far out of the way from anything else, even in the post-apocalypse. I had never personally lived there when I was messing around on Google Earth and I realized "I've been here before."
It felt familiar to me in the same way your primary school building might feel familiar to you. You probably don't remember the exact layout of everything, and your memory of how it felt to be there is colored by your future experiences and what other people have told you about what you were like as a child.
Nobody can ever truly remember exactly how their past felt, just like I can never truly understand what it's like to live in Nye County or Las Vegas. You remember your past much more than I can remember those places because you have a direct, unbroken, physical connection. I don't.
But I do have those flashes of recognition. The layout of a town feeling right in a way I can't describe. A deep sadness when I look at a point on the map which used to be something and is now barely hanging on, like I was there to watch the old schoolhouse collapse. I knew sagebrush had a smell before anyone told me. When I play Geoguessr, I can sometimes distinguish stretches of highway that look almost identical to other stretches of highway because one of them feels like the way home.
I don't think a past life is what's causing this. My past life in Las Vegas feels different, I can't put my finger on how. I don't feel, right now, as if I am Las Vegan. It's a place I've been before and that I'd love to visit again, and I feel a connection to it, but it's not my home right now.
I'm in the middle of a very long-lasting fictionflicker of someone who *did* live in northern Nye County, but these feelings predate that, and they never lived in this world, 2024. That flicker doesn't explain the feeling of deja vu I get when I look at dashcam videos. They didn't know what a car was. I never drove a car there, but, clear as day, I know I should be driving a car there.
I have a general fascination with rural and remote areas of the United States. I spend a lot of my free time reading about a lot of places, and I'd like to visit them someday. I know this isn't just that interest on a more intense level because my interest is that of an observer. I am a person looking down from above at dots on a map, wishing I could drive in and sit at the bar and ask what stories they tell. Their stories, their bar, their dots, their place, their home.
With very few exceptions, I have not felt as if their story is mine. I've felt as if we are a metaphor for each other, as if their history can be used to lay out my life in a way that makes just a little more sense. I've been able to see similarities between my hometown and other towns, to fit them together in a greater story of what it means to be a Midwesterner or to be American or to be bypassed and forgotten as soon as you aren't useful.
But those are not my story. There's always separation. There is no separation here. The story of this place is my story, when I read it I fit in perfectly. I don't have to go sit at their bar, I am already at my favorite bar, metaphorically.
For now, I am Nevadan. I've never lived there, and I will probably never live there. That's okay. I'm a multifaceted person. Nye County is a place that calls out to me, but I have other places I need to attend to. It'd probably make me feel worse to spend a lot of time there and realize "I'm *not* from here, on some level, this is all something my brain made up." I already know that, but it's not something I need to internalize, and for that I am grateful.
I have a hometown I love dearly and feel an obligation to give back to, and I'm very excited to live there. I can hold it dear without ignoring the call of the desert. To let go of either would be the death of me, so I won't.
I've had multiple hearthomes over the years, some of which have stuck around and some of which has faded. The one that's most important to me right now is an ill-defined area of modern day rural Nevada, which can be best described as "it's mostly northern Nye County".
Most of it is uninhabited, but my relationship to it is definitely within the context of being a human being from there, not any sort of nonhuman desert wildlife. (Humans are a species of desert wildlife, if you ask me!)
I knew my hearthome is in Nevada pretty much as soon as I knew the term existed, but I thought it was in Las Vegas or some other part of the Mojave Desert. As Arcade Gannon, that's where I lived my adult life, so I have a feeling of belonging to that place. Now I classify that as just being... from there, no qualifiers other than "it was in a past life".
I never went to Nye County. It's quite far out of the way from anything else, even in the post-apocalypse. I had never personally lived there when I was messing around on Google Earth and I realized "I've been here before."
It felt familiar to me in the same way your primary school building might feel familiar to you. You probably don't remember the exact layout of everything, and your memory of how it felt to be there is colored by your future experiences and what other people have told you about what you were like as a child.
Nobody can ever truly remember exactly how their past felt, just like I can never truly understand what it's like to live in Nye County or Las Vegas. You remember your past much more than I can remember those places because you have a direct, unbroken, physical connection. I don't.
But I do have those flashes of recognition. The layout of a town feeling right in a way I can't describe. A deep sadness when I look at a point on the map which used to be something and is now barely hanging on, like I was there to watch the old schoolhouse collapse. I knew sagebrush had a smell before anyone told me. When I play Geoguessr, I can sometimes distinguish stretches of highway that look almost identical to other stretches of highway because one of them feels like the way home.
I don't think a past life is what's causing this. My past life in Las Vegas feels different, I can't put my finger on how. I don't feel, right now, as if I am Las Vegan. It's a place I've been before and that I'd love to visit again, and I feel a connection to it, but it's not my home right now.
I'm in the middle of a very long-lasting fictionflicker of someone who *did* live in northern Nye County, but these feelings predate that, and they never lived in this world, 2024. That flicker doesn't explain the feeling of deja vu I get when I look at dashcam videos. They didn't know what a car was. I never drove a car there, but, clear as day, I know I should be driving a car there.
I have a general fascination with rural and remote areas of the United States. I spend a lot of my free time reading about a lot of places, and I'd like to visit them someday. I know this isn't just that interest on a more intense level because my interest is that of an observer. I am a person looking down from above at dots on a map, wishing I could drive in and sit at the bar and ask what stories they tell. Their stories, their bar, their dots, their place, their home.
With very few exceptions, I have not felt as if their story is mine. I've felt as if we are a metaphor for each other, as if their history can be used to lay out my life in a way that makes just a little more sense. I've been able to see similarities between my hometown and other towns, to fit them together in a greater story of what it means to be a Midwesterner or to be American or to be bypassed and forgotten as soon as you aren't useful.
But those are not my story. There's always separation. There is no separation here. The story of this place is my story, when I read it I fit in perfectly. I don't have to go sit at their bar, I am already at my favorite bar, metaphorically.
For now, I am Nevadan. I've never lived there, and I will probably never live there. That's okay. I'm a multifaceted person. Nye County is a place that calls out to me, but I have other places I need to attend to. It'd probably make me feel worse to spend a lot of time there and realize "I'm *not* from here, on some level, this is all something my brain made up." I already know that, but it's not something I need to internalize, and for that I am grateful.
I have a hometown I love dearly and feel an obligation to give back to, and I'm very excited to live there. I can hold it dear without ignoring the call of the desert. To let go of either would be the death of me, so I won't.
