Home Shifts

A year ago today, I thought I knew where I was headed. I imagined my thirties would be taking root in Baltimore and I hadn't yet met the New Mexican with whom I'd begin a new shared life. If anything is certain and constant, its change. I never realized how deeply attached to the east coast my identity and sense of place were amidst my frequent travels and moves around the country because the horizon was always home-- Baltimore County. I always carried a license with my only permanent address-- the stone house on Flagstone Circle that I grew up in. Now, I am a resident of New Mexico and my foreseeable future unspools here. It takes time to set down roots. I've been reading histories, Southwest writers and poets reflections, about water and land grant stories, the making of Spanish American history. All of it feels like an attempt to have a stake here, to belong to a landscape, culture, and history that while contained in my country still feel particular, new, and unknown. In college in the Shenandoah Valley, a boy who'd biked across the United States said, "eventually one must come to rest, must mix their blood and sweat with the land." He might've been quoting someone else and I might've recalled and memorized my own impression of his words but over time that quote has been a cadence in my head. I just never expected to come to rest here. Last February, I was daydreaming about buying a house within 10 miles of where I'd been born and raised and now I live in a casita 1,852 miles away with a boy I love and a cat. Life is unpredictable and so is the time it takes to carve out a path forward, to build a community from scratch, to find inroads to profession and passions. This autumn and winter haven't been both full of beauty, newness, and difficulties. I remind myself to be patient and to be persistent. I'm grateful for the letters that arrive in my mailbox (and inbox) connecting me to all the places I've called home.

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