True to my name
I just spent my first week in Tucson after nearly fourteen years away.
There's something about the landscape you grew up in that feels like home, despite how long you've been away. I grew up knowing all the names of the cactus and other desert plants; I knew our bats and birds and bugs. Being back truly felt like home, in a way that's very different from coming home to my parents and brothers. It was the checkout lady's accent at Safeway. The forty cyclists outside the coffee shop in the early morning, and the cyclists climbing Mount Lemmon (passing me, obviously.) The quail cooing and scratching in the dirt like chickens, and the mourning dove who built her nest over our back door. The way the mountains change color, from purple to dust to green, throughout the day, and the way the sunset fills up the sky.
I think my parents will eventually have to move back, because I think that's where we all belong.
There's something about the landscape you grew up in that feels like home, despite how long you've been away. I grew up knowing all the names of the cactus and other desert plants; I knew our bats and birds and bugs. Being back truly felt like home, in a way that's very different from coming home to my parents and brothers. It was the checkout lady's accent at Safeway. The forty cyclists outside the coffee shop in the early morning, and the cyclists climbing Mount Lemmon (passing me, obviously.) The quail cooing and scratching in the dirt like chickens, and the mourning dove who built her nest over our back door. The way the mountains change color, from purple to dust to green, throughout the day, and the way the sunset fills up the sky.
I think my parents will eventually have to move back, because I think that's where we all belong.