Tag: home

The pitfall of a nomadic soul is being washed with envy anytime someone mentions their Hometown.

I’ve never lived in any single town more than a couple of years, and even then- I wasn’t interested in planting a root or taking any souvenirs when I left.

I’m a patchwork of every place I’ve been. A medley of every person I’ve met. To label anywhere my hometown would be a disservice to everywhere else I’ve lived. Each town has raised me. Each neighbor has helped me. Every piece of earth has had something to teach me.

“Where are you from?” has always been a dreaded question.

Recently, when asked “how I ended up out here”, I caught myself blushing a bit: “I’ve always had a crush on this place.”

Circa 2016, I wrote a blog on this very site where I talked about measuring my life’s chapters via “my commute home.” I was living in the Bay Area for only a few weeks at the time; I’d been driving back to Berkeley from Tracy after staying the night with a guy I’d later go on to almost marry (yikes). I’d been putting along in traffic on 580 and catcalling to the BART trains lining the center of the freeway. I remember feeling such a sense of accomplishment, achievement: Landing the job (plus a bartending job- cause Bay Area), securing a place to live for myself and my 2 cats.

I think about this blog often. I thought about it in 2018, while I walked 2 blocks from home to the plant nursery I worked at. I thought about it in 2019, while I used the hell out of my brakes in an hour of traffic each way. I thought about it in 2020, while I commuted 15 miles of flat, open farmland, often landing at the neighborhood bar before home. I thought about it in 2021 while I shuffled my slippers to the desk in my living room. I thought about it in 2022, while I crossed county lines for a job I intended to quit. I thought about it in 2023, while I navigated a two-lane winding forest road, gushing in gratitude that even though my commute was 30 minutes long, I sometimes didn’t encounter another car the whole way.

I thought about that blog this morning, laughing at how even though my life is so purely the opposite as it was 8 years ago, that same sense of accomplishment and achievement prevails. Landing the job and a secure place to call home with the love of my life and our 2 cats, 5 goats, 3 dogs, and 18 chickens.

So, maybe I fumble to answer where I’m from, but I sure am happy to call here home.