JUNE 14, 2018 // 23
BOOKMONGER
Claiming a place of one’s own
Dionisia Morales was
born and raised in New
York City, but now calls
Corvallis home.
In “Homing Instincts,”
her new essay collection
just out from Oregon State
University Press, Morales
contemplates how mov-
ing and finding a place to
resettle, and then repeating
the process a few times
more, has affected her
sense of home and commu-
nity and belonging.
These essays are based
on her own experience, but
her gaze is capacious, and
she touches on everything
from bee colony collapse
disorder, rock climbing,
dementia, canning fruit,
dealing with insurance
adjusters, and a wedding in
Montana.
Morales considers many
definitions of home.
When she was a child, it
meant playing competitive
Scrabble in the apartment
she lived in with her par-
ents in lower Manhattan.
As a young woman, she
felt that buying a piece
of furniture — a bed or a
television set — signified
a solemn commitment to
place.
Still later, she came
believe that it isn’t realistic
to think she could “memo-
rize, purchase or fabricate”
home. Much more than a
street address, the concept
of home is intangible, per-
sonal and subjective — it’s
“about how ingrained peo-
ple’s impulses can be about
the nature and purpose of
shelter.”
It could be the tang of
the air, the view out the
window, or the piano in
the corner of the room. It
might be about the feeling
of independence, or the
security of belonging. It is
often about the people, and
the memories.
N W
word
nerd
By RYAN HUME
FOR COAST WEEKEND
TSUNAMI
[(T)SU ̇ •NÄ•MĒ]
noun
Author Dionisia Morales
PHOTOS COURTESY OREGON
STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
“Homing Instincts”
By Dionisia Morales
OSU Press
176 pp
$19.95
But when Morales’ dad
develops dementia, and
those memories vanish,
what takes their place
then? As her father grad-
ually disappears inside
himself, and Morales helps
her mother cope, she learns
that a home can contain not
only memories, but new
possibilities.
The author offers a
multitude of viewpoints in
these essays. She shares
experiences she’s had as a
daughter, wife, daughter-
in-law, mother, aunt and
friend.
When complications
arise during her pregnan-
cy, she weighs whether
it would be better to give
birth in the place where she
grew up, or in the place she
more recently moved to,
which is 3,000 miles away.
And, at the other end of
the spectrum, if she can’t
yet envision where she’d
choose to expire, she does
know where she doesn’t
want to die.
She ponders the power-
ful motivations that drive
some of her friends to
return to their war-restive
homeland. Or that cause
others to stay put despite
the violence.
And in this country, in
our current fraught time,
where issues of home-
lessness, immigration and
incivility have all become
part of a contentious debate
about who really belongs,
Morales comes from a
family that from generation
to generation has blended
ethnicities, cultures and
traditions. But isn’t that
the quintessentially human
way, sustaining “a cycle
that is so immense it can
scarcely be imagined”?
In “Homing Instincts,”
Morales offers these
reflective and generous
pieces to remind us that we
can make opportunities to
break bread and make com-
munity no matter where we
land.
The Bookmonger is
Barbara Lloyd McMi-
chael, who writes this
weekly column focusing
on the books, authors and
publishers of the Pacific
Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com
1. a large sea wave,
often a series of long and
high waves, produced by
violent undersea activity
such as a seaquake, volca-
nic eruption or underwater
landslide. Tsunamis can
travel over hundreds of
miles, moving about as
fast as an airplane, and can
create terrible devastation
when they touch land, wip-
ing across coastal areas in a
matter of minutes.
2. an overwhelming
amount of something, such
as information, arriving all
at once.
Origin
The term is relatively
new, entering English only
in 1896. From the Japanese
kanji 津, tsu, meaning
“harbor,” and 波, nami,
meaning “wave.” The liter-
al translation of the term as
“harbor wave” shows that
the emphasis has always
been on the impact of
the waves upon land and
communities, not the waves
themselves.
COURTESY CANNON BEACH HISTORY CENTER & MUSEUM
The ocean surges over the Scenic Surf Motel in Cannon Beach
following the 1964 Alaskan earthquake, which spurred a tsu-
nami along the West Coast.
According to the Na-
tional Oceanic and Atmo-
spheric Administration, the
islands of Japan have been
hit by 367 tsunamis since
the first record of a tidal
disaster was made in the
year 684.
“On the evening of June
15, 1896, the northeast
coast of Hondo, the main
island of Japan, was struck
by a great earthquake wave
(tsunami), which was more
destructive of life and prop-
erty than any earthquake
convulsion of this century
in that empire.”
— Eliza Ruhama Scid-
more, “The Recent Earth-
quake Wave in Japan,”
The National Geographic
Magazine, September 1896
“With years of prepa-
ration for the Big One
— a Cascadia Subduction
Zone earthquake and
tsunami — Seaside kids are
well-versed in evacuation
and shelter aspects of the
plan. Students’ “You can’t
stop this wave” campaign
helped raise tsunami
awareness throughout the
community and spurred
passage of the 2015 bond
for a new campus in the
Southeast Hills out of the
inundation zone.”
— R.J. Marx, “Southern
Exposure: A too-timely pre-
sentation on school safety,”
The Daily Astorian, May
28, 2018 CW
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