I recently went to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms” exhibit with my friend Michelle, and it was worth the visit.  What was especially significant about this particular exhibit is that this was the first time all three of Van Gogh’s bedroom paintings were in the same space in North America, and, as the Art Institute of Chicago put it, the exhibit offered a “pioneering and in-depth study of their making and meaning to Van Gogh in his relentless quest for home.”

That exhibit got me thinking about all the places I’ve called home, and I’ve shared them all in the list below.  I’ve only listed places I’ve stayed for a month or more:

The apartment on Keystone, which I barely remember, except for the upstairs neighbor named Mickey, who gave me a chocolate bar, and helping my mom make rum balls, and drinking Tang, and fuzzy warm rememberings.

The pigeon house on Turner, where great-grandma lived in the apartments in the next lot, and where I grew petunias in a pot on our upstairs porch, and where one time, my mom let me go to the store all on my own to buy a loaf of bread, and where my dad used to carry me up the stairs, running all the way, and where my mom made me an angel costume for halloween one year, and where my brother and I went Christmas caroling even though we didn’t know all the words to the songs.

The house on Cicero, where Christmas was a month-long extravaganza, and where there was cherry pie for Washington’s birthday, and where every holiday was celebrated and noted, and where my brother and I shared a room and we used to link our little hands to close the chasm between our beds as we fell asleep, and where there were food fights, and tire swings, and flowers, and family, and where, in the fall, the pungent scent of burning leaves competed with the savory scent of beef stew on the stove top, and where my footfalls on the gravel path to the garage sounded loud and crunchy in the pre-dawn quiet before we left for camping trips, and where bridal wreaths and lilacs and lilies of the valley bloomed in the springtime, and where I danced the jitterbug in the hall with my gramps, and where my high school sweetheart and I posed for photos before we left for the homecoming dance.

My first dorm at Purdue, where I was homesick for my mom, and where, this one time, I got bronchitis and my mom and dad drove all the way from Chicago to bring me soup and to check up on me.

A private sublet room in the basement of a fraternity house at Purdue, which was a very bad idea.

Back to the dorm at Purdue, where I went out with my friends every Friday and Saturday and danced merengue and salsa all night long, and then we’d all go out for burritos, and we’d get home just before dawn.

My first apartment, where I lived with my first cat, and where I couldn’t sleep through the morning because of the squawking crows living in the tree right outside my bedroom window.

My second apartment where I met my awesome neighbors Eric and Pam and their cool cat Aspen, and where I used to sleep on a futon mattress on the floor and the entire apartment, including my kitchen and bathroom floors, were covered in commercial carpeting, and where I didn’t have a phone because I couldn’t afford one, but I’d spend every last penny I had calling my mom long distance from the payphone at the student union because I missed her so much.

A townhouse  where I used to come home super late from my job as a cocktail waitress and sleep until noon on summer Saturdays, and where I caught my roommate and his friend dressing up in my clothes and under-things, and I finally decided enough was enough, and I skipped out on my lease.

My third apartment where I used to sit on the porch in the summer and drink beer with my German upstairs neighbors, and where I used to eat delicious homemade food with my downstairs Filipina neighbor, and where I lived with my orange cat named pumpkin.

Back to the house on Cicero where I got to spend Friday nights watching TV with my parents, and where I decided to finally take ballet lessons and painting lessons and drawing lessons and ceramic lessons, and where I chose to give up perfectionism.

A McMansion in Plainfield where I learned that money definitely isn’t everything.

My flat on Damen in Back of the Yards, where I made friends with the gangbangers next door, and where I finished my master’s degree, and where I learned to tell the difference between gunshots and fireworks.

A half-finished cinderblock building standing on a concrete slab and topped with a tin roof that made the most horrendous racket in the monsoon rains in a tiny village about 30 minutes outside of Mbale, Uganda, where rats and cobras and bats and pigs and lizards and a gazillion malarial mosquitos and one little napoopoo, scurried, slithered, flapped, wandered, skittered, buzzed, and rustled in and out at will, and where I saw some of the worst of humanity and met some of the most willful survivors I’ve ever seen.

My apartment in downtown Lansing, where I could stand on my front stoop and see the Capitol Building, the Hall of Justice, and fireworks from the ballpark, and where I had summer picnics at the table in my backyard that was given to me by a man I loved, and where I met my awesome former-upstairs-neighbors, and where I used to grill out with a super cool guy named Joe who lived upstairs and traveled to Bulgaria regularly and would me bring back cool things like rose oil and rakia, and where I got the call telling me that my dad had died.

The room in an apartment in an historic building in Copenhagen, Denmark that I rented from a smart and sassy elderly Danish woman, and where I ate all the kinds of potatoes and herrings–and almost all of one really bad cookie laced with who-knows-what, and where I read Kierkegaard’s ideas of love, and where I drank tea and listened to stories, and where my heart healed from a bad breakup and a rough fight against cancer

Back to the house on Cicero, where I waited and waited and waited for my work visa to clear.

An urban high-rise in Doha, Qatar, where I spent evenings eating lamb chops delivered to my door from the gas station restaurant, and where I played with the two cats I was fostering to try to help them heal from bad things humans had done to them, and where I met my good friend Brenda who helped me see God in a different way, and where I colored Easter eggs with my friend Jean, and where I gained a new appreciate for religious freedom.

Back to the house on Cicero, where I rested and spent time with family.

My friend Carolyn’s house, which was snug and cozy and during the day, filled with the action of five adults, including one octogenerian, two kids, and two cats, and at night, quiet as a church, where every day, I talked to an old man who didn’t remember who I was, but remembered that he liked me, and where I learned how to live in community with kind, imperfect people who accepted my imperfections.

The extended-stay hotel in the middle of a remodel, where my toes froze in winter, and where I fed stray cats and fat raccoons, and where I regularly stayed up until 4 in the morning reading students’ work and planning out my teaching, and where I watched snow fall and fall and fall on the Red Cedar River.