A couple of months ago, in October, I went on a weekend trip with Mom and R, and my Unlikely Friend. And, The WonderPup, of course.
It was a good, solid trip with no drama. The house we stayed in was nice; the festival itself was much less impressive than I remembered it. It's probably nothing special to anyone who doesn't have a reason to be there. But it's familiar to me, and I understand John Denver's song a little more intimately after this particular trip.
Take me home, Country Roads
To the place, where I belong
What does it mean to have a place where I belong? Does such a place exist? And if it does, where on this great big earth could it be?
It so happens John Denver, and my Grandfather, felt that the place they belonged was West Virginia. The only reason I feel bonded to that place, to that space, to that festival, is because it makes me feel close to a man I barely knew when he died. I was only eleven. To be honest, the only real memories I have of him are in West Virginia. There was this time I went to the house with him, my grandmother, and my aunt. I was maybe four. The car broke down, and I remember sitting in the front of a great big tow truck watching the driver shift the gears. And then there were the times I went during hunting season. I wasn't allowed to cross the treeline, and since I rarely listened, Granddad never stopped yelling at me on those weekends.
And then, there was this wooden chicken. I don't know what it was doing there, or why they had it. Over the years, I think parts of it were lost or broken, but I strongly remember it sitting there on the brick near the fireplace, directly across from the daybed where Granddad routinely fell asleep reading during the day. It wouldn't fit the decor in my house even remotely, but my God, I'd love to have that stupid chicken someday. I wonder where it is, even. Or if I'm the only one who remembers it?
So West Virginia, that's not the place where I belong. Not specifically. It's only the place where my roots were - the place where important people belonged - the place John Denver wrote about. But it's not for me.
I've been thinking about the concept of belonging a lot, before that trip, and for almost every moment after we got home. I think there are probably places where I'd never belong - perhaps the deep south, or Southern California. I'd be hard pressed to find a community in, for example, Texas. Me? Cowboys boots? Can you even imagine? I can't. I don't want to, even if I could.
I think there are, by contrast, a great number of places where I would belong without trying very hard. Boulder Colorado. Washington DC. Deep in the woods in Maine.
Mostly though, I can't think of many times in my life where I didn't feel securely placed. Outside of the awkward teenage years that exist for anyone, I've been pretty lucky to find myself at ease within a community. This was particularly true for me in college, because at Albright, I found myself in love with the life I was living, moreso than ever before - and without a doubt, more than I ever have since.
It's hard to look back at that time in my life and remember it all fondly. It's so wrapped up in TxB, his involvement with my life, the places I lived, the people I knew that I struggle to separate how I felt about myself from how I felt about our relationship. It's a weird feeling to think that the time when you felt most attached to a place was the time when you were least free.
On the other hand, those were the first times in my life when I didn't feel compelled to be anything other than whatever I was in the moment. And people liked me. A lot. Some of those people are still important in my life. Many of them, even.
So for me, home never feels closer than the base of the other mountain, at 13th and Burn streets. Or maybe, a little further from the mountain, on Olive Street. I don't get to go there, or be there much at all, and there are a great many reasons why. It's not the only place where I belong, but it's a place.
And for that place, I will be eternally grateful.
And for that place, I will be eternally grateful.
