The ways in which we understand the meaning of home is not a new concept. But still, I wonder if it haunts every person in the same ways which it shadows me.

It has been four years since I last visited the place where I was born. It has been three years since I’ve seen my mother. It has been two since I made the drive to visit my brother. Here, where I sit now, I have only inhabited for one. The longest I have stayed in one place is two years. And then six months. There was a place far up in the north east which I returned to for five consecutive years. But it has been another five since I’ve gone back.

I once told myself that home is where my feet touch the ground. But now the lines upon my brow have begun to hold and I’m not sure if this fleeting point of view maintains anymore comfort to me.

I thought this while I sipped my morning coffee. But as this ritual has proven, the richness of browns found in the warmth I held between my hands distracted my thoughts with the memory of you. What is it in a individual that inspires such fantasies? A willingness to risk a failure of it all? Years ago, a man once told me “love is an action word”. I took this advice and I began to study. I took this advice and I began to build you a home.

—

a peice of a longer work in progress

  The van belonged to Thomas and Troy, the musical duo responsible for this trip. It sat fuming in what little shade we could find while we killed time wandering the dried, deserted streets of an abandoned ghost town nestled amongst the sprawling desert and cattle ranges between El Paso and San Antonio, Texas; a strangely well-known junction that I knew from past experiences of traveling cross country, had little to promise as of help. On this sweltering summer day, it amazed me that this little van chose here, of all places, to rest.  

           The town offered only a few modest wood and brick buildings. “No Nuclear Waste Aqui!” was spray painted in black above the door of a large vacated gas station that sat at the mouth of Kents meager three-block radius. Most of the windows have been boarded up with planks of wood while the few that remained share glimpses of outdated packages of peanuts and motor oil left inside.

           My knees stick together with sweat as we weave in and out of the small houses, where doors have been left wide open. Mostly empty rooms are all that remain, save for the the few artifacts left of a past life: pots and pans, clothing and debris. A pile of rocks sits in front of a door where a hanging sign reads: Please do not enter. This is our home. Although the pile of rocks looks like they’ve sat untouched for centuries, we abide and continue on.

          Elsewhere, Thomas and I investigate the contents of cupboards and the spiders that now reside amongst the cracks and corners of the walls. We make up stories of those who had left and the tiny creatures that had stayed behind. Over the last couple weeks, I have grown fond of Thomas. Even though we are the same age, Thomas’s creativity and curiosity for life imparts glimpses of an innocence I feel I had missed out; a rare quality I savored and wanted to protect. His harmonies and lyrical talent never failed to chill me, convincing me he silently saw and understood things that nobody else could. It wouldn’t be until much later that I would finally understand that he really did.

Troy, on the other hand, was a narcissist; the kind of man who never knew when to let things be. Always sitting shotgun, for days he would annoy us with banter that only he found amusing. Grease stains covered the bib of his sparsely changed t-shirts, and his habit of chain-smoking cigarettes eventually leaked its toxicity into me as my only refuge to cope with his constant aggression towards Thomas.. As long as I have known Troy, I have known him to be unemployed, living off of delivery pizza funded by Thomas. It was an inscrutable income, I realized— as they both were unemployed, save for the small venues and house shows they occasionally performed.  

           You would never have guessed that Thomas and Troy are brothers. Troy was large, round, and pale skinned with piercing blue eyes. Thomas, bi-racial and smaller, had a large gap between his teeth making his smile infectious and unforgettable.  An unlikely bond which one would claim was born from love, while the other shared whispered secrets of feeling possessed.

           As we continued to ramble through the tiny ghost town, I felt a sensation that would subconsciously become a familiar signal for me to give the brothers space. At the start of the trip, Troy would periodically and abruptly demand some privacy with Thomas. But as the miles we traveled together grew, I learned to pick up on the clues: a wrinkled brow, a rouged complexion, an exchange in characteristics; when Thomas would be teeming with energy and for once, Troy would be moody and silent. I follow the cue and head back towards the gas station alone.

           Once I get back to the boarded windows, I decide on one last view and began to warily scale the side of the gas station building. In the distance, a freight train passes below the speckled mountain range. The sounds of its steady chugging and far-off whistle renders a calmness I try to hold on to. As the train moves out of sight, I survey the towns ruins for the last time.

Below, I spot Troy and Thomas walking along. Troy, unaware of my gaze, raises his fist and hits Thomas hard in the face. Neither I nor Thomas flinch in this moment as he reels backwards from the blow and then continues walking alongside Troy, unfazed. A silence echoes across the desert plains reverberating a familiar numbness that often follows the harsh realities of what we have been taught is love.

            I make my way back down the building, my body sulking with an invisible weight. My thigh catches on a protruding metal shingle. A stinging trail of blood trickles down my leg and marks the path towards the van, where I await the brothers, and prepare myself for the coming miles, the fading of this town and everything through the rearview mirror.

Creative Non-Fiction Essay Travel

Tendrils creep and twine

around my ankles.

bulbous and crisp-

corms pop between my fingers.

A film of dirt acts as a barrier  between

my skin and the world.

bright pink veins of the spring beauties

mimic,

my own. net venation.

parts in 3’s.

stamens exposed;

an invitation.

a short lived offering. A

plea. necessity.

How is love for a place born from despair? Maybe the answer is found only in the subtle details. In the particulars. In the markings of chipped paint between slats of wood. Gaudy fences with failing structures. Wide front porches outlining neighborhoods pockmarked with potholes, an occasional empty lot. Adjacent lawns either kempt or unkempt but always between rusted out vehicles and the bicycles of children trusted to lie freely in driveways. In the lichen creeping up the sides of walls. Maybe the answer is found in the creaking apartment building behind the blocks of bars I tried to call home. In the high ceilings, in the comfort of dog paws. Next to the mulberry tree blooming against the graffitied brick wall, not quite art but a relief from monotonous purity nonetheless. Maybe  in the dark stained sidewalks once the mulberries ripen and drop. The same women pushing her cart of groceries. A crowded laundry mat with familiar faces. In the bowing of wood floors where people once danced, prayed, cried, laughed. In the arcs that frame windows and the rasping of age. In the scuffing of floor boards and the decorative trim hidden beneath ages stains.

Here, intermittent pastel houses brighten gloomy winters. Green rectangles and brown lots with tall grass. Missed opportunities. Here, two of the poorest wards in the county touch and blend at their seams, 4000 vacant lots, homes, but that are still homes. Some people call this place a nuisance. A place to avoid. Train tracks divisively act as boundaries, barriers. Newspapers call this city a blight. Chain linked fences around buildings that might be inhabited. Dogs tied to posts. Trash and debris against the flourishing raspberries, blackberries,  and apple trees where I step over littered glass for the sake of canned applesauce to last into fall. I, too, at some point counted down the imaginary days to a time when I might leave, and cursed the ways I ended up here. I, too, wasn’t always able to see the little things.

*

How is it that a place can both break you and give you a reason to be? This I wonder as I drive through a new town, which feels less like a town than it does a commercial advertisement for middle class families. Here, young adults never seem to need to leave home. Here, the wood floors are not bowed, and they are not real wood. The ceiling fans work and my cast iron skillets clash with the electric stovetop. I try to learn how to cook all over again but there is no one here to cook for.  My neighbors have no names, the paint on my walls is pristine, the plastic panels that make up the siding embarrass me with cleanliness. White. Pure. A lackluster idea.

I visit the home of a friend which isn’t a home but a mansion. Named after fast food corporations. Ready to assemble and ordered by mail. Modern. Interpretations of a home. The American dream. There are three stories, not including the basement. Which is also a bar. A game room. A library for dusty books. A theatre. A man cave. There are Jacuzzi jets in every bathtub and a chandelier that looks like it’s made of marble. “But it’s really Styrofoam.” People who live here are sometimes proud of this fact. Some pretend they don’t know. There is an idea of safety. Of comfort. Of gates and locked doors and windows which never need opening. There is air conditioning in summer and heat in winter and all of it is conveniently programmed to automatically adjust, no spinning of dials necessary, no stuffing of door jams.

Here there are no subtleties. No worn out arm rests of chairs where a friend’s mother and her mother use to sit. Children’s toys don’t lay on the sidewalks and neighborhood dogs don’t stop by for visits. There are train tracks here, too, but the cops show up if you watch too long, and there is always a harsh knocking at the door when the lawn reaches my ankles.

*

A thought: Maybe you can’t make sense of one without the other, not love without despair. Perhaps the clusters of budding crocus in spring only make sense against the foundation of the rotting green house on the dead end street. The overgrowth of trees, the unchecked vines. The old Chevy truck with a rusted out bed. The one I’d pile too many people into anyways before the morning it finally broke down. Maybe the relief of the evening breeze found on the front porch only made sense with the crowds of mosquitos I fought to ignore, the car jack holding the roof above my head, the hollyhocks blooming from cigarette butts below. The questionable, shady riverside hide out to wade on sweltering days, to rinse the dirt that covered from head to toe. The cheap, tiny greasy diner where they know your name. Coffee, fish, and grits. A consolation. Absolution. The incessant chopping of wood, kindling just to warm winter bones. Old family photos of people you’ll never know in a basement where you learn to hide. The histories of spaces.

Maybe you have to leave a place and come back to learn how to see. Maybe it’s not a question of space, but time. Where the answers are only known for brief moments. The time of morning right before dawn. When everything makes a little more sense. Fleeting. It’s a pale pink and a velvet gray blue. It’s the soft tingle of bird chirps through the air. When all known places compile through the cracks of blinds to make one.  A momentary relief. A familial sensation. A thread which brings comfort in pretending you are somewhere else. The answer is a haze and then it’s gone, but it is there. Maybe you have to leave a place and come back to learn how to see.

Creative Non-Fiction Stream of Conciousness Essay

It’s a thing easily missed. A subtle notion. A single added detail not so different from the nights when only a single star is visible. Polaris. Beta Orionis. Antares. Guardian of a place over 500 light years away. An incandescence to corrival the sun. You can’t miss it. You can’t miss it as long as you look. Some call that place heaven. It’s a thing easily missed until you see it and then you can’t unsee. It’s a single detail not so different from the nights when only a single star is visible. And then you can’t unsee it. And it reappears in the green and yellow spotted lichen creeping up the trunks of trees, found on the shaded spots of stones, on the aged wooden bench where you sometimes sit and look up. When you shut your eyes tight, rubbing with the palms of your hands because 500 light years is still too far and some nights even one star can’t be found in the sky. Some call that place heaven.

My heart beats so fast I can feel it loud in my throat.

My heart beats so fast I can feel it reverberating behind my eyes.

My heart beats so loudly it reaches the ends of my toes, the tips of my fingers, in between my legs.

My heart beats with such power like when the waves back home would meet with my fragile body, bringing me to my knees,

Resonating like the house shows we use to host in our living room; feet stomping against the bowing, wood floors to voices on and off beat.

It beats in remembrance for the love no longer there, of a man whom I gave my all.

It even still beats fast, remembering the faltering, relapsing, waning of that love lost.

It beats with realization that it will love like that again.

That it will healed,

Has begun healing,

Has made space for new.

My heart beats loudly for my sadness, like it did when you picked me up from the hospital downtown and I knelt at the base of a tree with sickness.

When you left me in the waiting room alone.

When you let go of my hand.

When our individual griefs manifested in toxic habits that created a distance never to be traversed.

It beats with an intensity not like that of many hands upon a drum, not like the clapping of thunder which lights up the sky.

But like that of a butterfly’s wings as it leaves its dusty husk behind,

Like the decimation of every trees pith with age and weight.

With the intensity of a child suckling from its mother with an insatiable thirst

Like the fluttering of a hummingbird, so quick; it’s almost entirely unseen.

It pumps, and breathes into my body with a love so supple and shy,

It would be a shame to go missed.

My heart beats not unlike the short lived bloom of the lily,

A vulnerable delight I bestow onto you fully,

Briefly, bravely. If only you are to catch it on que.

When most people imagine the blueberry plant, they likely picture a shoulder high bush, thick and weighing with the large, plump bright berry familiar to us through plastic grocery store pints and atop our yogurt parfaits. When I tell people of my years working on a blueberry farm, I am often met with surprise when I speak of the small, unassuming berry that grows wild and vastly on low bushes that rarely surpass your ankles, of the sweetness unlike anything found in grocery stores, the varieties of sunset pinks, blues and maroons in coloring.

The intimacy of the blueberry as well as the bonds created through this late summer harvest, is something I also could not fathom, as I traversed across the United States the first year I was confirmed to work for a local organic blueberry farm. I had no idea of the satisfying labor, processes and relationships that would unfold, bringing me back to this small unassuming town in North East Maine for consecutive years to come. The harvest consists of some of the toughest agricultural work I have experienced; backs bent as the sun browned our sweating skin. Dripping dirt and blueberry black and purple juices stains tinted our fingers and faces. Black flies and bumblebees warned of their bite as they persisted to linger around our bare legs and shoulders. Flimsy string strung by our foreman upon arrival dictated where our rows ended and began with our neighbors.

Depending on the field, there were days when you could find yourself working alongside someone else for most of the day; while other days the terrain was so long and dense in foliage that you’d feel almost lost and distant from not only the crew but the entire world. A fleeting feeling of isolation of course, for as the sun began to set with the awakening of mosquitos to replace the black flies, the faces of my coworkers, my campmates and my friends would begin to emerge from our respectable rows; boxes of blueberries in hand to top off our shadowing stacks, from bountiful fields, or to top off our mushy, humbled low lying stacks from wet, sparse and vine filled fields.

Together we would trail behind the massive blueberry trailer as it slowly rolled past the start of our rows, helping load up each other’s precious yield; pounds of blue gold in each handmade wooden box, used well past their prime but still preferred over the plastic bins for sake of aesthetics. Once our berries were loaded, we’d sit below the framed setting sun over acres of woods to share our box count and the refreshing sounds of beers being cracked…

I would be dishonest to say that the day leisurely ended here or that the parts of those harvesting days that I nostalgically relish in the most had been seen through- yet past the unsurmountable beauty of the Maine coast, the wild flowers foraged and bundled to take home during breaks and the wide availability of solitary streams to take a dip in on extra skin bubbling days; none of this is imaginable to me without recognizing the hour and a half long drive back to camp from Cutler.

Every year, Cutler was the field we always saved for last. Not only was it the largest field we harvested from; but it was also the farthest from camp. That was 50 miles traversed both to and from Cutler for multiple weeks of the season. Boxes loaded, we’d all pile into the few cars brave enough to traverse the rocky, harsh roads in, or… into the farm truck. An option most dreaded because of the time added to the journey back home due to the 25ft trailer carrying the fragile berries in tow. For me, this option was one I almost could never surpass. There was something undeniably intimate in the griminess of sitting so close to a pile of field sweaty human beings whose day was spent so similarly to each other’s yet still individually our own. The truck would always be filled with such a great sense of exhaustion that it had no other option but to reveal itself in excitement and silliness. Music and singing would blast over the radio to drown out the clacking and clanging of the blueberries rakes pilled in the bed of the truck. We clutched onto our dog friends while the tops of our heads hit the roof as the trailer bounced us over rocks and ditches. This would persist half of the drive back until we made the stomach rumbling turn into the town of Machias. A strange little tiny corner of the world, where rural coastal Maine living met young political activism atop a historical waterfall; but most importantly, home of the Machias Freshies Gas station.

Freshies. Where we could not only fuel up the vehicles but also our work weary muscles. Rushing in, we’d make our way to the pizza warmer in back where the underrated cheesy gas station perfection awaited us. Locals either stared on or laughed with understanding as we grabbed our slices, one too many ramekins of hot sauce that would inevitably spill, and a forty ounce to help the pizza grease settle. Paper plates in hand, we’d filter our way back to the vehicles to puzzle piece ourselves amongst our drooling dog companions. The smell of gas station food diffused into the air as we trekked further on down the road, this taken for granted sustenance quelled the insatiable hungers only known to the migrant worker. Sustaining us for another half hour of storytelling and to honk and holler back at our companions in speedier cars as they passed us up on the sparse Maine two lane highways. Arriving last to camp as the farm truck always did, the already showered remainder of the crew would buzz with their last bit of energy as they followed the truck and trailer to the barn where we would for another day, unload our boxes of berries together.

the dirtied snow melts into the softened ripe earth

only to change its mind at dusk and powder the streets with crisp white abundance once more.

a stinging breeze lingers near my ear as the clouds briefly clear to allow the suns momentary respite.

i can’t deny these fingers have thawed after winters more bitter;

but still, the reddened flesh of my hands pronounces every crease and scar, like wrinkled butcher paper or the many layers of peonies.

nevertheless, my belly yawns with the satiation of warm meals and my body whispers gratitude’s for winters cues and echoes of remembrance.

My heart beats so fast I can feel it loud in my throat.

My heart beats so fast I can feel it reverberating behind my eyes.

My heart beats so loudly it reaches the ends of my toes, the tips of my fingers, in between my legs.

My heart beats with such power like when the waves back home would meet with my fragile body, bringing me to my knees,

Resonating like the house shows we use to host in our living room; feet stomping against the bowing, wood floors to voices on and off beat.

It beats in remembrance for the love no longer there, of a man whom I gave my all.

It even still beats fast, remembering the faltering, relapsing, waning of that love lost.

It beats with realization that it will love like that again.

That it will healed,

Has begun healing,

Has made space for new.

My heart beats loudly for my sadness, like it did when you picked me up from the hospital downtown and I knelt at the base of a tree with sickness.

When you left me in the waiting room alone.

When you let go of my hand.

When our individual griefs manifested in toxic habits that created a distance never to be traversed.

It beats with an intensity not like that of many hands upon a drum, not like the clapping of thunder which lights up the sky.

But like that of a butterfly’s wings as it leaves its dusty husk behind,

Like the decimation of every trees pith with age and weight.

With the intensity of a child suckling from its mother with an insatiable thirst

Like the fluttering of a hummingbird, so quick; it’s almost entirely unseen.

It pumps, and breathes into my body with a love so supple and shy,

It would be a shame to go missed.

My heart beats not unlike the short lived bloom of the lily,

A vulnerable delight I bestow onto you fully,

Briefly, bravely. If only you are to catch it on que.

I am toes sifting through sand at the beach

I am barefooted on stained city sidewalks on late nights

I am a grateful dog parent

I am a gender fluid, queer identifying person

I am fluent in French through my studies since first grade

I am young and forever growing and changing in my ways

I am quiet and reserved but with observance and open eyes

I am endlessly questioning but still forgiving and gratuitous

I am learning how to love and emit my growing appreciation

I am checking my privilege and learning how to stand up for others

I am slow and shy but will always take a dance

I am open arms

I am endlessly an ally

I am the child and grandchild of the two woman who raised me, even now that they refuse to acknowledge each other

I am the elder sibling to a sister who endlessly enthralls me and makes me proud

I am the younger sibling to a brother who is an artist, that I wish was closer

I am always the daughter to an ever distant father, who still somehow understands me like no other

I am the first in my family to graduate HS in two generations, even if I barely slid by

I am the south west at heart,

I am the desert winds and landscapes of stars

I am the north east evergreens beckoning

I am the recluse cabins and the daily water hole visits

I am both the Pacific Ocean and the chilling Atlantic

I am amidst a culture, my nuclear family does not celebrate or condone

I am a visitor of many homes where I indulge in homemade tortas made with second families

I am hot San Diego days at our favorite fish taco stand and elotes on the corner

I am sharing language and values with my chosen family who have always shared with open hearts

I am always painfully home sick to those who I blindly left behind

I am a North American Traveler

I am hitch hiking to a vibrant New Orleans

I am riding trains through the plains of New Mexico

I am discovering and holding onto community with people from both North and South America

I am dystopian novel’s and social commentary

I am finding solace in Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottoms analysis and growth

I am late nights, flashlights, reading strong women writers

I am the blueberry raker, the tree planter, the seaweed harvester

I am the migrant worker

I am proud and head strong as I push my body to its limits

I am meditation in physical repetition

I am a seed sower

I am a plant nurturer

I am foraging my food and

I am growing my own medicines

I am euphoria in watching things grow

I am interest in living sustainably and being close to the earth

I am patience in chopping wood to heat my home

I am raising chickens to indulge in fresh eggs

I am watching birds out my window and fear for their exsistence

I am cooking dinner by candle light

I am bathing in the local river

I am a pen pal, reminding them all that I care

I am a heart connected to many,

I am unrelenting of distances disconnect