I spend a lot of time considering home as a feeling of connectedness more than a just place to sleep. Home as a place tends to bring up old wounds of isolation as my mom (perhaps unintentionally) kept me inside for most of my years under the guise of keeping me safe, and then the last three years of my marriage I was trapped in housewife land, terrified to assert any personal will or express my desires fully.
Now that I’ve been living alone, I’m more aware of how triggering staying home can be for me, and I often seek to be anywhere but my apartment. I’ve been considering home as an extension of myself, now that the weather is shifting here in Denver. I know cognitively that I need to care for my space in order to care for myself. For example, if i’m going to be responsible with my money and my health by eating home-cooked meals, then I’ll have to do dishes which shoots me back to the isolating memories of my childhood and early twenties where I was often cleaning as punishment or out of obligation. I don’t enjoy cleaning. I dissociate or have flashbacks to harsher times. I’m slowly moving into a healthier dynamic with it, recognizing that it’s incredibly kind to the future version of myself to have clean dishes and clothes, to have a place to prepare food and eat meals and sit down and walk around.
Another perspective of home for me is how I connect to the land where I live, which has been difficult since moving out west. I feel disconnected when I’m cold in September. I feel disconnected from the trees and the animals here, but I’m trying! I’m asking the land to see me and hold me. I’m spending more time with my feet in the grass and the sun on my forehead. I’m hiking more and meeting the spruce and poplar trees, the aspens with their knowing eyes. I’m hearing messages from the geese and the dragonflies, while still allowing myself to miss the South. As with everything else in life, it’s a both/and.
I’ll leave you with a journal entry from September 12, where I spent the afternoon at my favorite park since moving here, days before I spotted the first dusting of snow on the peaks and felt tremendous sorrow for summer’s end:
“There are dozens of dragonflies at Sloan's Lake this evening, and I'm absorbing the setting sun. It's good for me to be alone. It's good for me to be here on this land. I don't know how long I'll stay. I don't know how long it wants me here, but for now I know it does. The earth holds me and keeps me, and somehow I feel safe here. Safe enough to fall asleep in a public place outdoors. Safe enough to be by myself.
I know the sun here in a new way. The way I needed the moon in the South to offer her gentleness, her relief, I need the sun in Denver because summer is on her exit and the chill of autumn approaches. I'm told the sun will protect me this winter, but I am so afraid. If the clouds emerge and suppress the light, will I freeze on this cold earth? When November comes, will I still feel alone, or will the Sun offer me her warmth and her company? Will she recognize me? Have I spent enough time with her in gratitude? Will she embrace me in December?
One day, I must return. I must go back home,
where the land is green and lush,
and the cicadas sing and scream.
The lightning bugs speaking in morse code,
I SEE YOU. I WANT TO BE CLOSER TO YOU.
I must return to the old, thickening pecan tree,
the cardinals and the robins on dense branches.
Clover abundant, water in the air,
silent suspension turned sweat on round foreheads,
sweat under breast,
sweat on her back—
I SEE YOU. I WANT TO BE CLOSER TO YOU.
I wish I could teleport there.”
(20230912)
Hey Friend!
Thanks for reading this entry from The Overlap. Get my newsletter in your inbox every Thursday by signing up below! I share poems, playlists, and original songs each week, then once a month I’ll share my favorite message here on the blog.