Soon Be Home

Not yet 5:00 am: I sat in the car across from the house that would soon be our new home. I kept repeating the address, like a child practicing what to tell a kind stranger if she needs help.
 
I’d just dropped my son off at the airport, where we each blew the other a kiss, caught it in a hand, and slipped it into a pocket, as we have done since the early days. Almost 18 and soon, Colorado-bound for college.
 
I’m on my way, too. Maybe we are always on our way somewhere. Maybe this is a beautiful thing. Maybe sometimes it keeps us from seeing where we already are.
 
Headlights off, I pictured turning the key in the door on closing day, imagining the trees coming into their fullest expression, standing again on a threshold of the unknown.
 
Even though the sky is always changing, it’s always the sky. This is how my love feels. It’s always my love, no matter the weather.

***

 
I drove north, back to the valley where my family moved when I was nine. Right hand over heart, I told that little girl she didn’t have to create a hideout in an abandoned shed or barn attic, crouch on a fire escape or in an alley, squirrel herself away.
 
She could stay and I would stay with her.
 
Do you know I’m 50 years old? I asked. Can you believe that? She couldn’t really. Wow, she said. You’re OLD. Yes, I am, and that means I can sit with you, and we can just breathe together. I know change is scary for you. She whispered, It’s really scary. I reassured her. I’ll be with you the whole time,
 
She started to cry, her breath a fish in a catch and release, hooked then free. After she quieted, I drove in silence, sky still dark.
 
This child associates moving with loss, turmoil, fracture, and rupture – not fresh starts, clean slates, and possibility. Instead of trying to convince her, I folded her into my embrace. Sweet girl.
 
Everyone and everything will be ok, and even if it’s not, it is. We’re together, always together. 
 

***

 
My mother often talks about picturing the houses she lived in as a child when she’s in the liminal spaces around the edges of sleep. My own wanderings through houses past has sometimes kept me from fully inhabiting the present.
 
Back home, I brewed coffee and responded to emails. Texts from my kids, both stepping into their newly minted adult lives. We often reflect that every decision precludes others and also leads to what feels inevitable. As a friend recently said, “If it’s meant to happen, you can’t stop it. If it isn’t, you can’t force it.”
 
I said good morning to my person, stretching out alongside them. They showed me cute gardening shoes on Pinterest and talked about trying out Pickleball at the courts near the house that will be our new home. I told them I’m dreaming of saving for new windows and exterior paint, of the screened-in sunroom, the tiny kitchen, the three front steps where I may sit with my coffee as our new neighborhood wakes. What color will the roses be?
 
My thoughts wandered, charting relationships in terms of time spent together. For those raising children, there are children. For people with significant others, there are significant others. Many people spend their waking hours with co-workers. I would add our four-legged friends.
 
At the beginning and the end of the day, at the beginning and end of our lives, we are with ourselves. We inhabit one ever-changing home: these miraculous bodies that grow, shrink, suffer, heal, adapt, decline, and carry us through the whole shebang.
 

***

 
My mother’s body was once my home, just as mine nourished my children. We give and give, then step back and give way. We stay or we move, they stay or they move. The circles widen and widen.
 
As I type this, my son is boarding a plane from Minnesota to Wyoming; my daughter’s finishing a shift at work, and my spouse is tidying our current home. The dog is snoring. The wind gusts outside, a steely March day.
 
Just as I carry my young self within, I carry those I love with me everywhere, in my thoughts, in my heart. I repeat the new address to myself like a mantra, to be sure I won’t get lost on the way home.