I read a story from my English text book. The story is written by Scott Russell Sanders. It named "Home Places". In "Home Places", Sanders states that constantly we are faced with a choice "whether to go or stay, whether to move to a situation that is safer, richer, easier, more attractive, or to stick where we are and make were what we can of it". Today's society encourages people to listen to their inner and outer voices, "urging us to deal with difficulties by pulling up stakes and heading for now territory". However, I agree with him that we should stay put, and face situation rather than from it to flee.
In the story, there was a family named Millers. They were a farming family who had suffered from the devastation caused by three tornadoes. However, instead of choosing "flight", moving to another place, they chose to stay put and rebuild their house on the same spot for three times. Sanders believes that the main reason for them to stay put was that the Millers had invested so much of their lives into that piece of land. So for the Millers, this was not just so many acres of dirt, easily exchanged for an equal amount elsewhere; it was a particular place, intimately known, worked on, dreamed over, cherished.
Unlike the Millers, when my father faced many difficulties and unpleasant situations back in China, he chose to follow the voices "both inner and outer, urging us to deal with difficulties by pulling up stakes and heading for new territory". In 1995, my father decided to leave his homeland, the country of his birth, and move to America to escape the restrictions and obligations forced on him by the Chinese society and government. Like the Millers, his family was nearby, he had good job, a nice home, yet the impulse a flight propelled him to leave everything behind, to seek something more in America.
I feel my situation is unlike the Millers' or my father's. My experience was more like Sanders. He said "soon after that I left Ohio, snatched away by college as forcefully as by any cyclone". In September 2001, a "cyclone" uprooted me from my country, and dropped me in America. Like the Millers, I wanted to stay in my homeland where I had been rooted since birth. My friends, my family, my school, and my heart were all there. However, my father decided my mother and I needed to move to America and join him. Even though now, I am happy that I moved here, my feeling to stay put belong to a landscape "at-homeness" are all the same as Sanders.
Many people tend to surrender to the impulse to flee rather than to stay put. However, I believe that deep within most of them is a desire to be settled and rooted in their own place. My father is one of them. Even though in 1995 he chose to listen to the voices of flight, now he has a strong desire within him to settle down and have his own "acres of dirt" where he can invest his life. He is no longer listen to the voices of moving on. He recently brought a house, his own "particular place" that he can work on, dream over, and cherish.
The world today says flee, move away from difficulties and unpleasant situation yet deep within we all have a desire to be rooted, to have a place we can call home. Sanders and I were snatched away from our homeplace by our own "cyclone", we had no choice regarding "whether to stay put or to pull up stakes". Perhaps, this is why I agree with Sanders that is better to stay put and make the beset of the situation rather than continuously to pull up stakes and move from place to place seeking what most of the time we have left behind.
In the story, there was a family named Millers. They were a farming family who had suffered from the devastation caused by three tornadoes. However, instead of choosing "flight", moving to another place, they chose to stay put and rebuild their house on the same spot for three times. Sanders believes that the main reason for them to stay put was that the Millers had invested so much of their lives into that piece of land. So for the Millers, this was not just so many acres of dirt, easily exchanged for an equal amount elsewhere; it was a particular place, intimately known, worked on, dreamed over, cherished.
Unlike the Millers, when my father faced many difficulties and unpleasant situations back in China, he chose to follow the voices "both inner and outer, urging us to deal with difficulties by pulling up stakes and heading for new territory". In 1995, my father decided to leave his homeland, the country of his birth, and move to America to escape the restrictions and obligations forced on him by the Chinese society and government. Like the Millers, his family was nearby, he had good job, a nice home, yet the impulse a flight propelled him to leave everything behind, to seek something more in America.
I feel my situation is unlike the Millers' or my father's. My experience was more like Sanders. He said "soon after that I left Ohio, snatched away by college as forcefully as by any cyclone". In September 2001, a "cyclone" uprooted me from my country, and dropped me in America. Like the Millers, I wanted to stay in my homeland where I had been rooted since birth. My friends, my family, my school, and my heart were all there. However, my father decided my mother and I needed to move to America and join him. Even though now, I am happy that I moved here, my feeling to stay put belong to a landscape "at-homeness" are all the same as Sanders.
Many people tend to surrender to the impulse to flee rather than to stay put. However, I believe that deep within most of them is a desire to be settled and rooted in their own place. My father is one of them. Even though in 1995 he chose to listen to the voices of flight, now he has a strong desire within him to settle down and have his own "acres of dirt" where he can invest his life. He is no longer listen to the voices of moving on. He recently brought a house, his own "particular place" that he can work on, dream over, and cherish.
The world today says flee, move away from difficulties and unpleasant situation yet deep within we all have a desire to be rooted, to have a place we can call home. Sanders and I were snatched away from our homeplace by our own "cyclone", we had no choice regarding "whether to stay put or to pull up stakes". Perhaps, this is why I agree with Sanders that is better to stay put and make the beset of the situation rather than continuously to pull up stakes and move from place to place seeking what most of the time we have left behind.
