Other Words for Home

by Jasmine Warga

You don’t have to worry about me. I am just a girl who likes movies.

I am learning how to be sad and happy at the same time.

I like comedies where people laugh and then laugh some more. No one ever tells people in comedies to grow up.

And that’s when I realize I don’t have a choice. I’m going to have to learn how to be brave.

I keep expecting to see a cliff in Clifton but so far, I’ve only found really big hills, and even bigger trees.

Clifton is filled with old big houses. Aunt Michelle tells us that their house is over one hundred years old and I can tell she is proud of this, but I’m not sure why.

Everyone back home wants a new house n...

But one morning, when I wake up, the floor creaks and it sounds like the house is saying hello and that makes me feel less alone.

Showing him I’m impressed feels somehow like a betrayal of Baba, a betrayal of home.

America, I realize, has its sad and tired parts too.

America, like every other place in the world, is a place where some people sleep and some people other people dream.

Americans love labels. They help them know what to expect. Sometimes, though, I think labels stop them from thinking.

I usually ignore her, but tonight, it is like the storm is inside of me too and I am tired of being quiet.

Grace tells me that at her old home she used to have to climb steps up to her bed. But here in America, she says, My bed is on the ground. She blinks and then says, Floor? Is floor better? Do you like it better? I ask. She gives me a little smile, not saying yes or no, only It’s different.

I wonder if it is exhausting to be a tree. To lose something, year after year, only to trust that it will someday grow back.

Sometimes all you can do is hold on.

Lucky. I am learning how to say it over and over again in English. I am learning how it tastes— sweet with promise and bitter with responsibility.

Hoping, I’m starting to think, might be the bravest thing a person can do.

I’ve decided it is very American to have the audacity to claim that three things add up to everything.

I have learned Americans love to say you know and then stop talking. They force you to fill in the hard parts, the things they are not brave enough to say.

That I cover my head not because I am ashamed forced or hiding. But because I am proud and want to seen as I am.

There is an Arabic proverb that says: She makes you feel like a loaf of freshly baked bread. It is said about the nicest kindest people. The type of people who help you rise.

Layla gives me the shrug the American one, the one I learned from her, the one when you don’t know the answer but can’t quite bring yourself to admit it. Or maybe sometimes you shrug because you do know the answer, but it is too painful to say.

Too much sunshine makes a desert. I wonder, though, if it is possible for there to be too much rain. I am starting to feel like I am drowning, like I don’t know how much longer I can stay afloat.

They are paying someone to scrub off the paint, but I am slowly realizing that no amount of money is enough to scrub away the hate.

We are silent for a while. It is not a bad silence though. Instead it feels right like it is acknowledging the heaviness of what was said, and it’s okay that we don’t know what to say.

It is lovely to be a part of something that feels bigger than you.