E. says “I am from Pesantren” the way Mystique Summers said “I am from Chicago.” Declaring victory and throwing down a gauntlet.
Half the people from his hometown say half of their words backwards, this is Arema slang, gleeful insider speak, encoded against outsiders. (Not least, law enforcement, which, never forget, is rotten to the core.) Aremaisme, Easternoil, is a spirit, unassailable.
I never met anyone more hometown than my husband. I told him that and I got a whole lecture on the meaning (spiritual, mythical, historical, etymological) of Tumpang. I can only smile.
The only place in America that I miss is a lake. I used to walk around it almost every day and take pictures of it. I took so many. Different seasons, different times of day, different perspectives. Sometimes I look at those pictures and weep. That’s it, all I loved of that place, was the lake. And I do miss it, so much, the only place I long to visit. If I ever went back, to America.
(There are people, that’s different. Possibly a school… But certainly not a town.)
I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about America (“The United States” of it). But the country where I was born has been, for me, something to understand, and if possible, to overcome. I am a political animal. We are political animals. But we are more than that. Love is the cause and the demonstration.
So. If I have a hometown, it isn’t quite mine.