Good ground

This week, my mom and I drove from San Francisco to Austin, through the Central Valley (California's backstage) and the stark pink and gold of the Mojave. We came into a town no one has ever heard of just as a massive, yellow moon was rising over three hills of wind farm. We slept in Barstow and spent the next day paralleling the classic Route 66 on the new I-40. Buttes, red-rock vistas, lightning strikes, monsoon-like storms, and then rainbows. Every mile was a delight, and I'm not just saying that. On the third day, we sped by fields of Texas soybeans, sorghum and sunflowers and into the rocky green of Hill Country. Austin spread out before us at sunset, hazy in the post-rain dusk and already feeling like home after just a few days on the road.

When I wasn't awed by the scenery or practically driving off the road at the sight of a double rainbow across the New Mexico desert, I was feeling ridiculously grateful to be behind the wheel of a U-Haul, heading toward this new beginning. As the miles ticked by, I felt as though I were figuratively scooping them up and tucking them away. Maybe in the truck, along with my guest futon (come visit!) and boxes of childhood mementos, books, dishes and clothes. Miles as breadcrumbs leading me to the next step, and I was glad to be experiencing every one of them. Flying over at 35,000 feet just wouldn't have been the same. That was how I dropped in on June 8, fresh from the desert and proceeded to live three weeks of summer school, still feeling halfway up in the air. This road trip grounded me, literally. As in: showed me the ground of where I had been all the way to where I was going. (One of the actual rainbows we saw on the road!)

Finding the right ground is important. I have two mentors who live in Martinsville, Maine (no, this is not the start of a limerick or a tongue twister). They used to live in suburban Detroit, and I went to their house every Thanksgiving during college. But then, one summer, they went to Maine and fell in love with the St. George Peninsula near Rockland. Every minute of the next few years was spent planning their move there. Once they arrived, they went about building a home, a business, a life. Now, it is hard to get them to leave the region. It is their soul home. (And lest you doubt, there's a link to their blog, Hedgerow Designs, on the right of this page! Their love for the place comes through in every word!)

This experience made a deep impression on me while it was unfolding in the late 90s. I was awed by the idea of a soul home, a place that feels like it's been waiting for you to arrive, a place you'd move heaven and earth to get to. In the back of my mind, as the years passed, I found myself hoping that I'd find my soul home one day. Maybe that's why I love to travel so much. In the back of my mind, I've been testing a lot of ground, hoping for that "click" that would tell me I was home.

Austin is a very good place to be. Maybe there wasn't a dramatic "click," but I have felt comfortable here from the start. And I feel even more attached after the miles I've traveled to get here, through the blooming fields and barren deserts, literal and figurative. There's a lot to be said for a U-Haul and the open road, and a place to come home to at the end of the ride.