In “On Going Home,” Joan Didion writes about the differences between her family and her husband because they do not get along. Didion is saying that she feels like an outsider in her own home because she moved away and hers and the lifestyle of her family are not the same. Didion is nostalgic about what went on when she was younger, because she started to go through old pictures and junk. She is starting to get bored and missing her life in L.A. Her family still thinks of her as a child. The mother cannot giver daughter the same sense of home and family because of her disconnection. This essay spoke to me on various levels but the main reason why I chose it is because I could see myself in it. As a married woman who has chosen to live far from “home,” I felt connected to this piece and to Didion. In “On Going Home” Didion uses place in both ways. She discusses her childhood home, in the Central Valley of California, the specific place where she grew up and where her mother resides, and as she shares her memories and experiences with the location itself, she also gives up insight into her history, culture, what her family is/was like and how that place affected and still affects her emotionally and how it compares to the home she’s made with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles. Writing about place challenges us to rethink the way in which we view our own place—what we take for granted, how we choose to define ourselves, and what we mean to others.”
Didion’s essay had a profound effect on me. It caused me to reflect on my own life and to think about where I came from, where I am now and where I’m going. I’ve lived in various places and have considered each one my “home” at one time or another. Although Didion was talking about her own life, I felt as though she might as well have been talking about me and mine even though I no longer think of