“A conversation between two women searching for home both away and in the city.” Drama.
from Above Us
Winnie and Natalie are on a roof. On this roof, they have been discussing New York and the idea of home. Winnie, who has been in New York for eight years, is finally moving away. It’s been a long time coming, and Natalie approached her about subletting her East Village studio. Winnie has become hardened, jaded, but at this point has opened up to the optimistic, but secretly fearful Natalie.
In this selection, Natalie and Winnie discuss home and why Winnie is leaving the place she called home for the past eight years
NATALIE
Isn’t it crazy to think that we were all nomads before?
WINNIE
What do you mean?
NATALIE
That we were a hunter-gatherer people?
I mean, when did we get so obsessed with home?
WINNIE
With agriculture, farming.
NATALIE
I guess so.
But, what if home doesn’t exist.
WINNIE
Well, it’s existed ever since farming.
NATALIE
Sure, but even then. Do you have a home?
WINNIE
Yeah.
NATALIE
You have a place that feels like home?
WINNIE
Yes. In my hometown.
NATALIE
But, what makes that place home?
WINNIE
Familiarity.
NATALIE
With people? Or with the place itself?
WINNIE
Both.
NATALIE
But, if you had to choose.
WINNIE
Well, I don’t.
Do you not have a “home?”
NATALIE
I mean, yeah. When people ask me where I’m from, I say Western New York.
WINNIE
Where?
NATALIE
Hamburg. It’s “upstate.”
WINNIE
Ok. So, when people ask you where you’re from, you say a place right? You don’t say the people you know in that place?
NATALIE
Sure. But, that’s something that came later.
WINNIE
With farming.
NATALIE
Yeah. But, for me, if my family and all my friends moved somewhere else, that new place would be home.
WINNIE
There’s no way. If they moved somewhere that looked really different, like the beach, there’s no way you could call that place home.
NATALIE
Sure. It would be a little weird, but yeah I think I would eventually.
WINNIE
“Eventually?” When that new landscape becomes familiar?
NATALIE
No. Just when I got used to saying Florida and not Western New York.
WINNIE
But, it’s all about physical location again.
NATALIE
Sure. But, that’s just the language we use.
“Home” is a modern idea.
WINNIE
And by modern you mean an idea as old as the origins of farming.
NATALIE
Yeah. If the world has been around for a day, a full twenty-four hours, then humans only popped up in the last like two or four minutes of that day. Dinosaurs were only around for forty.
WINNIE
According to what?
NATALIE
The Natural History Museum. I went last week.
WINNIE
So, do you not believe in home?
NATALIE
Not in the home tied to place.
WINNIE
So, what then?
NATALIE
I don’t know. The one tied to people.
WINNIE
Then, what do you call the place where you live?
NATALIE
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter really. A house? A studio? Call it anything.
WINNIE
I need somewhere to be home. I need a space that’s only mine.
NATALIE
Isn’t that what this roof is?
WINNIE
It was.
NATALIE
Not anymore?
WINNIE
No. Nothing in this city will ever be just yours.
NATALIE
Is anything ever just yours?
WINNIE
I hope so. I can’t really stand not having . . . something.
NATALIE
But, you do have something. This place, this roof is yours.
WINNIE
And soon it will be yours.
NATALIE
Ok. Yeah. And there’s something really wonderful in that.
WINNIE
Like what?
NATALIE
Like that we become part of this bigger story, you know? That it isn’t just ours. That it belongs to something bigger.
WINNIE
Bigger? Why do we always have to be part of something bigger? I am so sick of hearing about the fucking life force of the world.
NATALIE
But, that’s out there. The world has logic.
WINNIE
No. I am me and you are you. And, beyond that who the fuck knows?
NATALIE
I think that’s a dangerous way to think about things.
WINNIE
Why? Because it’s real.
NATALIE
No! Because it isn’t real.
Ok. Like my parents they live this isolated little existence in Hamburg. They bought a plot of land, right? And then they built a home for themselves, ok?
WINNIE
And that place isn’t home?
NATALIE
No, it isn’t! Because, that place is a prison. They’re never going to sell it because it’s the place where my brother and I took our first steps and where we grew up into annoying, whiny teenagers and threw our first parties when they went out of town. There is no other story in that house but our story.
WINNIE
So that place is yours. You have roots there.
NATALIE
But, the roots are so big that they’re drinking up all the water. There’s no flow in that house. No sense of, like, the world outside little Hamburg.
WINNIE
You should be grateful to have that.
NATALIE
Grateful for a prison where you’re locked in with your family?
WINNIE
This place is the prison, New York. Not Hamburg.
NATALIE
No.
WINNIE
New York is like the world’s most populated motel. It’s a place where life replaces itself. There are so many stories here, your story, your life barely makes a blip on the radar.
NATALIE
And that’s so cool! When you’re here you’re part of that ecosystem. There’s like a flow to New York.
WINNIE
Yeah. There is. And for a time that movement, that flow is great. I mean, I did a couple laps.
But, now, I need space. There’s barely room to do my art here. And when it becomes a struggle just to make your art, to find a space that’s sacred to you and for what you do, it just makes everything so much harder.
NATALIE
But, isn’t that what we have to do? To find that space within yourself?
WINNIE
Dude. I’m just talking about a space to solder shit.
NATALIE
But, you have that spot here?
WINNIE
Somewhere I rent for 50 bucks an hour, yeah.
NATALIE
Then that’s what your day job is for, and that’s what when you sell a piece of art it’s for, to pay for that hourly.
WINNIE
Well, first of all, however much money you put into your art, you’re rarely going to make that back. You rarely break even. It can’t be about the money.
It has to be about getting it out of your system and giving it to somebody else.
NATALIE
I guess. Or not.
WINNIE
There’s no sense in hoarding your own art.
NATALIE
Not hoarding. But, what if it’s about, what if it’s not about other people?
WINNIE
It’s not what it’s about. It’s about what it’s for.