FINDING MY WAY HOME
Evergreens
whooshed by her as she drove. Peppered between them were trees shedding leaves
of burnt red and orange. Her 1991 Acura Integra was packed to the gills. The
air was just cool enough to crack the window open.
September.
No one
was surprised by her leaving. The hugs at her old
office were tight and true with whispers of, “You stayed too long” and
“Go. Make us proud.” She had spent five years doing what she thought was right.
Five years at a desk. Five years trying to be good, to meet a good man, to make
a life worth settling down for.
Five
years.
But she
was wild at heart, and not in a false rebellion
kind of way. She wanted roots, but she also needed wings. Family would come—she felt it in her
bones. She would love and love big. But for now…for now she craved a landscape
that matched her soul: untamed, pure and full of awe. For now the love was for herself and nature and art and God.
North
country.
It was
amazing how much money you could save when a place was calling your name. She
heard it at night, just as her head hit the pillow. It was an echo from the
distance and the pull was both sonic and visual; a rope running through
fingers, pulling her closer and closer. A call so deep and bare she could think
of little else. Her lunches were spent scoping lakeside cabins and small
cottages in the hills.
No
neighbors.
She was
thirty years old but had never been alone. Between parents and boyfriends
and roommates, she had shared her existence, her habits and her energy
constantly. She was tired. It was time to feed herself,
to dangle between chores and obligations and be still for a while. It was time
to pray and paint and run with animals she had never seen.
No
plan.
It
would take as long as it took. Her soul was writing the script and
she was not privy to the following pages. She lived by breath, by gut. A friend
had called her fearless, but that wasn’t entirely true. She
shook with nerves at times but gently let them pass. Would her broken
heart follow her? Of course it would, but she would no longer follow it. No
more longing for completion. She had read a poem once that said she was already
whole and that felt true. She would follow that.
Arrival.
Pulling
down the gravel road, she gasped. The small cedar cabin sat to the side, bowing
deep to the grass-covered hills and the shimmering lake before it. A laptop
screen could never, ever do this justice. Is home a place or a feeling? Looking
out at the scene before her, she had to say it was both. It was an answer to a
call, a relenting, a surrender to that voice that whispers low and sweet: “I’ve
got you.” Tall grass at her feet, water close at hand and heaven within her.
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