We Can’t Go Home
To be a hero, at least in myth and fairy tale, we must leave home. Maybe we set off to right a wrong, vanquish a monster, save a loved one from a witch’s spell, find our fortune. In the stories, no adventure or peril is too great for us. The deed will be done. On the way, as we spar with giants, beat at windmills, turn the river from its course, melt the witch, we change. Hopefully, by the time we end up back home, we are wiser, more true to ourselves.
Yet we are not who we once were. That’s one reason, of course, that we can’t go home again. It is not the same “I” who returns.
At other times, we might not lose our way. Maybe our home has been destroyed, as is the case for many refugees or those who survive natural disasters. Like the Greek king Agamemnon, betrayed by his wife and murdered by her lover, we might die before we reach home. Or, like for Odysseus, it might take us a decade to get there, and when we do, our home might be unrecognizable.
As the educator, Yasuko Taoka, explains, nostalgia is the longing to return to a mythical place of perfection, a past without flaws. Of course, this is impossible. The past was never perfect. Nor was our home. Nostalgia gets in the way of our returning home, because the home we imagine doesn’t exist. [1]
Torn from Home
Some of us, however, never had a home, at least not beyond the one inside our mother’s belly. Rapunzel, for instance, was ripped from her home as soon as she was born.
Once there was a couple who longed for a child. Behind their house lived a powerful witch. Her vegetable garden was lush and abundant. One day, gazing out her window at the garden, the wife felt a desperate longing for the lettuce that grew there. She told her husband that if she didn’t get it, she would surely die. Not knowing what else to do, he climbed over the fence and stole some.
A few days later, the witch caught him.
“Mercy, please,” cried the husband, explaining how desperate his wife was for the succulent greens from the witch’s garden. So she agreed to let him continue to take her lettuce to feed his wife as long as they would give her the child that grew within her.
Reluctantly, the husband agreed.
Eventually, the wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. The witch took her, naming her Rapunzel, which means lettuce.
So Rapunzel never knew the place that should have been her first home. She never knew her parents. Instead, she was raised by a woman who did not love her and who, when she reached puberty, locked her in a tower with only one window and no door. Could this be called a home, this lonely and empty prison? Unfortunately, there are those for whom such a place is the only kind of home they know.
Singing for Survival
Yet the story says nothing about what it was like to grow up with a witch, nor how the girl felt about being trapped for years in a tower. All we know was that she is dutiful and never complained. A cheerful child, she sang to keep herself company. In the end, her singing saved her.
Rapunzel was blessed with a glowing beauty and hair that grew to her feet and beyond. When the witch wanted to visit the girl, she would call up to the window, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” and Rapunzel would shove her hair through the opening, letting it cascade to the ground. The witch would then climb up it, and they would visit.
One day, a young prince rode by and heard Rapunzel’s song. So captivated was he by her sweet voice, that he stood still and listened. Wanting to see this angelic singer, the prince searched for a way in, but found none. Defeated, he went home, but he could not forget that voice. So he returned.
At last, as he stood hidden in the woods, listening to her music, he saw the witch approach and call up to the window, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
Then Rapunzel appeared, and the prince was smitten. He saw how her hair fell down, and how the witch climbed it. Seeing his chance, the next night, he took it.
Into the Tower
Even the most impervious prison, the strongest protections, can be breached. Perhaps Rapunzel did feel at home in that tiny room, for surely she had a bed, food, clothing. She was warm and dry, and must have had some way to relieve herself and wash up. The witch wasn’t torturing her. On the other hand, she was keeping the young woman all to herself. She didn’t allow Rapunzel to see the world, venture out, find herself. No hero’s quest for her. Rapunzel knew nothing but what the witch taught her. Innocent and alone, Rapunzel waited, not knowing what she waited for.
The next evening, at dusk, the prince stepped from the woods and called to Rapunzel to let down her hair. Rapunzel did, and he climbed. When he stepped through the window, she was afraid. She had never seen a man before. Yet the prince was kind to her. He praised her singing, told her stories, listened to her sorrows, and made her laugh. He visited every evening, and they soon fell in love.
There are a few different versions of what happens next. In the original, the witch noticed that Rapunzel’s belly had grown round with pregnancy. In a later version, Rapunzel guilelessly commented, “Why is it you climb up so slowly, while the king’s son climbs so fast?”
Either way, the witch discovered that the tower has been breached. Rapunzel had lost her innocence. Our homes are not inviolate. With time, they change.
The Journey Begins
Furious, the witch chopped off the young woman’s hair and carried her away to a desolate and barren place, forcing her to live there, miserable and alone. How the witch got the two of them out of the tower safely, the story doesn’t say, but away they went, and Rapunzel mourned. Perhaps the tower hadn’t been much of a home, but it had been something.
After settling Rapunzel in her new hiding spot, the witch hurried back to the tower, attached the shorn hair to the windowsill, and settled in to await the prince’s return. Soon, the young man called up to Rapunzel. Down the hair tumbled, and up he climbed. But in the tower he found, not the sweet maiden, but the wicked crone.
Taunting him, the witch told him he would never see his “darling” again.
Grief-stricken, the prince jumped from the window. Although he didn’t break any bones, a thorn bush scratched him, putting out his eyes. Blind and bereft, the prince wandered through the woods. He found berries and roots, enough to sustain him, and he traveled throughout the land, seeking his beloved.
Both Rapunzel and the prince had begun the journey that would bring them home to their true selves.
Trapped in the Desert
It would take a few years for the prince to find the place where Rapunzel lived. What bound her to it, the story doesn’t say. Was it magic, timidity, despair? Did the witch threaten her? Did she hope to be rescued?
Perhaps she tried to find a way out, but couldn’t. Her new home was a desert, after all. Probably, she and her children were utterly alone, save for moths and lizards and stars. There would be no roads, no lights in the distance. In the desert, things grow in secret, hiding from the heat. There would be no birds or fish to help her like those in fairy tales. Without their magic, how would Rapunzel survive a trek across shifting sands with two babies in tow?
Besides, where would she go? If she could even find the tower again, the witch wouldn’t let her stay, and the home she grew up in before that would be closed to her.
I am reminded of Hagar, the Egyptian slave who fled from her cruel mistress, Sarah, and found herself alone in the desert. She made her way to a fountain and rested there. Sitting on the top of the well, she felt as stuck as Rapunzel. How could she cross an endless vista of sand to make her way back to Egypt? Even if she did make it, would she have a home there anymore? The prospect didn’t seem good.
When We Are Stuck
Sometimes we feel stuck. Our journeys take us to dead ends, to wastelands, to the edge of the ocean. We have no place to go.
Then God arrived. Instead of bringing Hagar the salvation she expected, though, instead of helping her find a way to Egypt, God sent her back to her mistress. Her home was no longer with her people; it was with Abraham and Sarah. Yet by running away, she learned who she was. It turned out she was pregnant, and her son, Ishmael, would be wild and proud, and would live among her people. She would have descendants too numerous to count. From her journey, she learned that she was as powerful as Sarah. Thus, she figured out how she and her mistress could get along.
If you know the story, you know that the two women did not get along forever. Eventually, Sarah would kick Hagar out, and this time there would be no going back. Hagar would not be able to go home again. But though she might wander, Hagar would never lose the knowledge of who she really was. Inside herself, she would always be home.
Perhaps Rapunzel had learned to be home within herself. She had learned about love and heartache, about wandering and suffering. A mother now, she knew how to care for others. She had grown up. It’s possible she knew who she was.
When we grow up, at least when we grow into our true selves, we retain the essence of who we are. Rapunzel still found life to be enchanting. Freed from that imprisoning tower, she could lie on the sand at night, her children nestled beside her, gazing at the stars. She would tell them stories of constellations. And she would sing.
Seeing Again
One day, with the sky a brilliant blue that he could not see, the prince arrived in Rapunzel’s desert. How he made his way to her, the story doesn’t say. Was he guided by a god or a cactus wren? Did he carry water or survive on manna from heaven? However it came to be, on this day, he heard a voice he recognized. Edging his ways closer, he became more and more certain, until the voice turned to singing, and he knew who it was.
“Rapunzel!” he cried, shuffling toward the melody. Then he heard the patter of feet, and Rapunzel called his name.
Clinging together, the two wept, their tears tinged with the sadness of years gone by, of loneliness and emptiness, of the wonder of love, and of the nostalgia of things lost and recovered, yet found to be imperfect. How imperfect these two had become. Broken and scarred as they were, still, joy filled their hearts.
There was healing for them, as well. As Rapunzel cried, her tears fell onto the prince’s eyes. They washed away his wounds until he could see once again.
Before we can mend, we must mourn. In stories, at least, suffering leads to redemption. Rapunzel learned patience and tenderness. While blind, the prince gained wisdom. He learned to see more deeply, more honestly.
As we journey through our own lives, we learn to see in a new way. With new sight, we discover our true selves. We come home.
Coming Home
In the end, the family made its way back to the prince’s kingdom, where they lived together in happiness. At last, Rapunzel had a home that was real, one that nurtured her and her children.
But before they could reach this home, they had to go on a quest, a journey that would make them who they were. The prince who left his father’s castle years before was not the same one who returned. Neither was Rapunzel the same maiden he’d fallen in love with. They’d traveled through a desert, broke against rocks, suffered. They were undone.
Yet when we can no longer hold ourselves together, we fall apart. Then a god or a lover or a tear can touch us. We heal by being touched.
Had they not been forced onto a quest, neither Rapunzel, nor the prince, nor even Odysseus, would have understood that. They would have happily gone through life in a daze, thinking they lived, thinking they loved. If we survive our journey, then we can truly return home.
Seeking Help
Some journeys take longer than others. Although Odysseus eventually made his way back to Ithaca, it took him ten years. The Sirens nearly made him mad with desire. Circe tried to win him from his wife. He came across a threatening Cyclops, the Underworld, the Scylla, and the nymph Calypso who trapped him for seven years, tempting him with immortality if he would but stay with her forever. Of course, he didn’t, but before he could leave her den, he needed the gods to help him.
We cannot make our way home by ourselves. Even Rapunzel and the prince had one another. Odysseus had the Zeus. He also had the memory of his faithful Penelope, who waited for him.
Some of us never make it home again. If we do, we probably won’t find what we expect. Nostalgia paints the walls a different hue, obscures the roof with mist, changes the smell or shape of the rooms, the feel of the floor against our feet. Then again, it might be we who change. Or it might be us both.
Perhaps that’s how we know we’re home at last. Everything is both familiar and not. We feel like ourselves, and we don’t. A hero faces demons and survives, but even more, a hero knows sadness and brokenness, and a hero finds redemption in tears. Unafraid to seek the help of the gods, a hero crosses the desert and discovers who she is truly meant to be.
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Taoka, Yasuko, “(Be)coming Home(r): Nostalgia in Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Contempt,'” Arethusa , Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring 2012), pp. 243-258, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26322732
Photo by Paréj Richárd on Unsplash
Copyright © 2021 Barbara E. Stevens. All Rights Reserved.