Night of the Navy Port

“The navy port is so quiet at night, the waves sway the warship softly.

A young marine rests his head on the waves like a pillow,

revealing a sweet smile from his dream…”

— “Night of the Navy Port”

My dad used to sing me this marine song as a lullaby when I was a child. The melodies created by his voice continue to echo in my mind, though I have never heard of the original song itself. On one homesick day, I found the song on Spotify and listened to the original track for the first time. It was almost a completely different, unfamiliar song—because my dad, like me, cannot sing in tune. The feelings of comfort associated with this song belonged solely to his voice. While this revelation of “distorted reality” is rather a sweet and playful one, it makes me think of how other images of my childhood surroundings were also muffled and only became clear after I stepped out of them.

How do you negotiate a paradoxical relationship with home? How do you portray a version of a home you only have access to while looking back from the outside?