Where did you come from?
Where did you go?
Dear Pyg,
How many hundreds of times did we hear these lyrics echo while we line danced with our B3 girls, sophomore year of college in “The Sitting Room”? Round and round those repetitive lines went, as we stepped and turned around, in our dorm room, with a hoard of friends up on stage in front of the whole school at the fall party, and eventually years later at my wedding reverently following the first dance, the father daughter dance, and then that techno beat line dance with my ladies. Just a hint of those beats make me smile and think of you.
College years . . . a time when everyone is uprooted, ready to grow their own legs and find their own place in the world. I think before college, I always assumed I would move back to Houston and settle down there. Westmont was a temporary get away. But when it came down to two offers, to take a job back home or be employed by my alma mater, I was for the first time in my life confronted with the challenge of two good options. Home, a meaningful job, familiarity, comfort OR Westmont (which had become a kind of new home), different meaningful work, independence, unknown, proximity to my sweetheart. I picked the guy and ever since then, my life has been a series of unexpected twists and turns and more moves than I ever would have dreamed of. Up and down the California coast, then across the whole country to Maine into a truly foreign frozen tundra. How many times my mother has reminded me in the past decade about how I swore I’d never live north of the Mason-Dixon line. But here I am, adapting to snow and mud season and parenting and home ownership and small town life and an unending battle against pine needles and ticks.
When I found out I was moving out to Maine, it meant our friendship was going to have to go truly long distance. We’d have to retire our annual New Years Sleepover Party at the Nadlers. Casual hangouts would only come once every few years now. We had to do your baby shower via Skype, a foreshadowing of current social gatherings! But we adapted with the creation of our blog. We moved far apart but we entered the new season of life together, both moving to unfamiliar territories, becoming mothers at the same time, balancing the responsibilities of life with our needs for creativity. And even our long distance connections spread out with the distance and the time.
But recently we got to catch up in person, a rare gift, when I visited California and illness be darned, you drove a good ways to come meet up for a brief hour or so of short distance togetherness, right before the whole world fell into isolation. We made good use of that time, you taking me down memory lane of your childhood, me getting to see a fun new place, both of us filling in the years that had gone by - all that had changed and all that remained constant and true. And as we hugged goodbye in this place that was new to me, I felt in that moment from the depths within as much as from a ray from the furthest beyond, that after all my travels and moves, being there with you felt like home.
And that was the moment I knew. That was the moment I heard the voice of God speak to my heart as if to say,
“Yes, this is where you belong.”
I was there in that town trying to discern if we should make the move to California from Maine, if Manny should take the job offer from University of California at Irvine. My parents and I drove all over that area trying to see what the schools, neighborhoods, parks, local farms, and beaches were all like. And they were beautiful and great, and that was all well and good. But it was all other people’s town, fine for them, but not my home.
Not Brunswick, with its forests and creeks and nearly infinite rocky coastline. Not DownEast, where I’ve made some of the most important friendships in my life. Not Midcoast Maine where I’ve grown into motherhood, developed my photographic skills, become an avocado seed carver of all things. Where friends rushed me to the hospital to deliver my baby boy to life, where I’ve found my voice as a teacher, where I’ve gone through significant healing and transformation and growth. I have been so surprised to find such a rich sense of belonging to these people and this place and I could not imagine ripping myself away from any of it, even to this day, as I took a walk through my neighborhood. I stood on my favorite little bridge, over a dam, listening to the waterfall beneath my feet and gazing at the placid surface of the pond before my eyes. This spot in particular has been my happy place for nearly a decade. I used to walk here with baby Sofia fallen asleep in my ergo, and now she scampers ahead of me there to seek out tadpoles for catching or skunk flowers for admiring, with little brother Daniel trailing behind to find cool sticks and rocks. Or I find solitude in this place, peace, calm, enveloped by the tall trees and surrounded by soothing water. How could I walk away from this place, from the house Sofia called “the favorite house” as soon as we pulled in the driveway while house hunting seven years ago? The house where we’ve grown from three to four, where family and friends have come from afar to stay with us and explore Vacationland with us, where we’ve hosted dinners, desserts, college students, church lunches, birthday parties, groups, and teas and coffees. Where I’ve developed my little garden of strawberries, garlic, basil, tomatoes galore, parsnip and carrots, cilantro and spinach and enough salad greens to supply my lunches through the summers. Where my magnolia and cherry trees grow. Where the neighborhood kids have flocked to us to climb all over our playlet and fly through our backyard on our zip line.
Place matters. Roots matter. Where I come from, where I go, as jumbled as the journey seems, matters, Cotten Eyed Joe. And much of where I’ve come from feels erased, nearly all my past residences torn down and forgotten by most. And here I go leaving again. But I have not forgotten, and I will not forget, and I will not leave unchanged, I will not depart without all the added depth and assets that this place has built in me. Because returning to you after so many years apart can still feel like home. Because home is not a house, it is not a city, it is not even found in a timezone. Thank God, Home is bigger than any of these things. Home is where you can belong. And returning to a place that is closer to my Roommate-for-Life feels like going home. And being here, quarantined in a town I've come to love, feels like being home. And I can hold all these things loosely and open my heart to a new season and a new chapter in this journey. I don't even know how I will belong in this unknown frontier before me, but something about being with you there made me know it would be possible.
Thank you for holding me when I was falling apart freshman year - drawing me close and letting me be your roommate when no one else would have me. Thank you for holding me even as we moved far apart, loving each other over long distance. And it won't be such a long distance anymore, because Emily, I'm moving home. To new town, to a new chapter, to a new place where I think I can belong again. Thanks for helping me get there. Thanks for reminding me that even through long distance, all the things I want to cling to so tightly here and now will still be with me, loved by me, making me who I am, no matter the time or distance that will separate us.
See you soon, my Lobster!
zoe faith
