SEMA WRAY
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300 WORDS: 20-Minute Summers 

7/4/2013

9 Comments

 
My mother referred to her hometown in Ontario as “home.”  As in, “when we are home
next week, we’re going to visit your drunken grandfather.”   I resented this reference;
home should be where we lived – her husband and daughters.  It’s easy to see now that I was being
overly sensitive, but I’m also certain that she likely persisted with that reference knowing it hurt my feelings,
and Kathy’s as well.  As for my father, tough to say.

And yet, I now find myself using the word “home” when planning a trip to Oswego, and it startles me. 
 
I grew up there, went to the schools, lived in the house where my mother still lives. 
I had friends, fell in love (more than once), had an apartment and a job.  And after I left, I’ve always
gone back.  I very much miss my friends there, and those whom I love.  Yet despite all of that, it never felt
like home.

Maybe it was because of the gray skies, the everlasting winters and 20-minute summers.   Or maybe it was
how I saw the Lake – vast and icy cold, the rocks slippery with moss – intimidating and a
little ominous.  

I knew I had to leave, like the town itself wanted to eject me.  I wasn’t close to my parents or even my sister then; there wasn’t enough there to construct a shelter, much less a home.  And I always held back;
I never gave all of me to anyone or anything, much less any place.  My friend James dubbed me
“aloof” when I was 14, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment.

 I often think it took me a ridiculously long time to grow up.  Sometimes I'm not sure I'm 
there yet.  But I do, finally, feel at home – wherever I am.

9 Comments
Noelynn
6/21/2013 12:32:41 pm

300 words or less....that's right in my literary wheelhouse! Bring it on!

Reply
sue baker link
6/23/2013 01:53:52 am

Hi Sema
I enjoyed reading your blog.
I know that having Kathy as a sister, it is going to be interesting.
sue

Reply
lane wray link
6/27/2013 06:36:29 pm

I love it!

Reply
Maggie
6/27/2013 10:23:46 pm

Love your blog!

Reply
Eileen
6/28/2013 12:02:48 am

So great to hear your voice here! :-)

Reply
Shelley
6/29/2013 12:54:48 pm

Awesome, completely awesome!

Reply
Wendy
7/2/2013 06:59:57 am

I am looking forward to these each week now! Keep writing, this one was great.

Reply
Bronwen
7/4/2013 03:15:00 pm

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I have been missing your stories. I can't wait for next week!

Reply
Hazel
7/5/2013 04:57:21 am

very moving

Reply



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    I was born in Oswego, NY, 
    a very cold place from which 
    I fled in 1988.  I graduated from the University of North Carolina Greensboro with a 
    BA in English, and have 
    worked in marketing and communications in  North Carolina and Virginia. I have lived in Richmond, since 1996, and even though I am not from from here, I am home here.  

    "I had always wanted to be a writer, but was impeded by the belief that to be a writer one had to be extraordinary, and I knew I wasn't.   By the time I was ready to give up my academic career I had realized that while books are extraordinary, writers themselves are no more or less special than anyone else."     The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
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Sema Wray • Writer

Richmond, VA
phone: 804-282-3609

email: [email protected]

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