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Top Comments: Notebook #84: Going-home rituals [1]

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Date: 2023-08-11

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There are home-going rituals and then there are going-home rituals.

Home-going rituals, of course, are funeral services of African-descended peoples the Americas for the purpose of giving the deceased a proper send-off to Heaven. I’ve been to some extraordinarily moving home-goings. I’ve been to some funny ones. I’ve been to services where the only home that the home-going one is going to is to hell.

And so on.

And then there are the going-home rituals which I frequently practice before the home-going...or returning home for a family Thanksgiving, Christmas, family reunion, birthday party, or what ever the occasion.

Going-home rituals such as...the house cleaning...

When I step away from Chicago for any reason, I like returning to a “spic-and-spanned” home.

But when I am going to visit family, “spic-and-spanned” doesn’t even describe the level of home cleaning to be attained. All clothing and other laundry has to be cleaned, even if it’s already been cleaned and not been worn.

Floors mopped and dried, shelves organized, fridge washed out, etc.

It’s a ritual for me, really.

I think...well, nearly every family that’s been described to me is toxic dysfunctional “ unhappy in it’s own way” (although I also think that Count Leo Tolstoy was being rather...diplomatic). Going home for almost any occasion and under any circumstances is, from anyway, stressful.

So the house-cleaning that I do before going home is almost a ritual designed to keep me calm.

I also double-down on whatever group therapy and/or mental uplifts that I feel that I may need. It’s one of the few times that I might read, for example, certain passages from the King James translation of the Bible; the ones that calm me. Or I might also read the Tao Te Ching.

Honestly, simply the idea of returning home for whatever reason is...stressful.

Next Saturday, my family is holding a big family reunion. My usual off days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so I leave for Detroit Monday night and will not return to Chicago until August 25th...11 days with the family (esp. Mom)

Wish me luck. I have to do some ritualizing; it’s the longest that I’ve spent in Detroit since my grandmother’s funeral back in 1995.

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