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When I was a girl, we would walk from our little white rental house towards the university. Wandering by all the big brick houses surrounded by old trees and gardens and then looping back to our white box with a cement porch, nestled behind a park that seemed to my young eyes to go on for days. 606 Maxwell. I remember every tree that stood guard around it’s small yard. I can recall the number of steps to the back fence and the driveway we shared with Cecil and Grace. Them smelling sweet of cigars and hard candy. Her dark hair cut as short as his white buzz cut. Their front room filled with curios and smoke. We didn’t own it, but that house was home, more deeply imbedded in my heart than anything since. Rocking chair scratching across green indoor/outdoor carpet in the screened in porch that was our penthouse. I devoured apples, buried in a book, perched in a tree that also served as covered wagon, space ship, whatever the days’ stories required. In the cool evening light we would travel city blocks, past houses with castle turrets and balustrades. Brick cottages covered with ivy, and wooden lodges surrounded by tall fences. I would peek through the cracks and dream into yards veiled in secrecy. My brother and I would hop and run along tumble down stone walls beside my parents strolling cracked sidewalks. We sought out visual treasures and the best finds were flowered bushes spilling out overgrown into the road – for those were where the fairies lived.
I have continued this quest as we have wandered about the country. Sprawling Southern estates and brick sea walls topped with old merchant homes in Wilmington. Everything covered over with azalea and crepe myrtle, pine trees standing sentry. The country’s history layed out block upon block, brownstones and homes that date to our founding days in the Nation’s Capitol. We walked and walked that city. In New York we rode the subway to slip into galleries hidden uptown, wondering of all the stories hidden behind curtained windows stacked upon each other. Nomads we are now, never quite making home. Yet I memorize the scenery and own the landmarks. A few months ago we almost made a home in the way tradition dictates. Buy a house, settle down. We still dream of a plot of land, our own space to pile up memories, holidays upon holidays in the same spot. Fireplaces, kitchen counters, and porch swings with history. But in the months since we let that dream slide we have found ourselves moving into new visions. We are “hopeless wanderers” and long to pace this globe, collecting all the bits of home that we can find. I don’t know what’s right, what to do. I want my children to have somewhere to come back to. But unlike when I was a little girl I understand now that the mystery’s thrill evaporates when you stop peeking through the cracks.When you purchase the dream, reality sets in and the story is never quite as perfect as the commercial. So for now we live a simple life, making home from goodnight songs and the same books read, Dad cooking breakfast and Mom building a wee garden where ever we may be. We claim cliffs and ocean waves as our own. This is the home my boys are soaking up, the saltwater and dusty sunlit trails etched deep in their hearts. We cook on a borrowed stove and have coffee and donuts at the same place every weekend. A community made of Tom the donut man and those we meet along the way.
I strap my golden haired boy to the front of my bike and ride the only place we have ever really felt at home in all our journeys. A place we haven’t actually resided in, but know the alley ways, coffee shops and characters, know them deep in our souls and call them our own.
Above all we are finding it necessary to keep our hearts aflame and search for the path we must tread. I don’t yet know what that means . . . but we are searching for treasures in the dark of a world that does not know our name. A world fraught with danger and so wide and open it cannot be contained. A world we travel only for a short time, meant to teach us many things – On our way to a bright and glorious, lasting home.
Our foolish hearts are so prone to wander from light into all that will diminish, confuse and confine. I’m beginning to be convinced that at least for us, if our feet do not wander this soil a bit we fall into well worn paths of darkness, well disguised as they may be. At least for now, my family grows healthy by pitching tents instead of building temples. There have been stops along the way where I have had to will myself to find bits of beauty I could offer thanks for. To try and love the sky I was under even as it rained down angry storms upon my face. But here I no longer feel I am drowning. Here I fall in love with every home that could be my own, every street, every beach, everything that could confirm that this is where I belong. And here I am seeing that I must try to simply love the sky, for that is free for all and will call us each home.
“Don’t let your heart grow cold, I will call you by name, I will share your road
But hold me fast, hold me fast, cause I’m a hopeless wanderer . . . and I will learn, learn to love the skies I’m under”
-Mumford and Sons
9-22-12 . 28mm . mid morning soft sunlight and indoors
