Nowhere In Particular
When someone asks me where I'm from, my upbringing, I immediately think of Canada. Or is it Turlock, what about Hilmar? Sacramento? The world I came from is nowhere in particular. I guess the world I come from was gas station soda and clothes wrinkled from being in a suitcase for so long. These car rides from one country to the next, one city to the next, made me this nomadic little girl with a hunger for change. I grew up in a small town in Canada; so naturally, I like the cold. I like the way it can make anyone feel snuggly or peaceful. I liked waking up to an actual white Christmas. I liked the snow days where we would stay home and play card games with candles lit all around the house so we could see the three spades in our hand. I was in love with it all until our first move to Hilmar, California. To a ten year old, this new world had a strange sense to it and smelled like cows. I quickly adapted to the new warm weather. I liked wearing shorts in March. I liked waking up to an actual summer's day. I decided to plant my roots here assuming another move would not be in my immediate future. I made friends, picked up a few instruments, and settled in the new springy warm air. However, not more than two years later I learned my family was once again moving to a new city, Turklock California. And a year after that we finally landed in the state's capital. We bought this big house with many rooms in it for family game nights and movies on the couch, something we never had in the small trailer taking us to the new dwelling we would sit in for only weeks at a time. It was nice to have a solid house again.
When I first arrived in Sacramento I was awkward, shy, and didn't have my friends, 'since birth' with me to eat lunch with or walk from class to class with. I was utterly alone. Even in my church youth group, I was the only girl. I felt like a daisy in a field full of roses. No one else understood what it was like to spend the night in a Fun Finder in a parking lot of Wal-Mart because that was the only place we could sleep for the night. No one else knew what it was like to be a pastor's daughter, this glooming expectation to be perfect. Looking back, there were actually three other people who understood. Not only did they understand, they were next to me the whole time. My three amazing sisters, Hannah, Claire, and Kate, were my friends 'since birth.' Hannah, my eldest sister, playing games with us younger children to keep us occupied while my mom and dad made dinner in our small area. Claire, my older sister, writing songs that only a ten year old would find musical. Kate my younger sister, eating lucky charms early in the morning before exploring the land that we were in that day. all these little memories I have collected on my voyage to find a place, have made me realize that maybe I don't want to find a place. I used to think I was weird because I didn't know how to respond to the terrifying question of 'where are you from?' Today, I'm still awkward, I'm still shy; but I know where I belong, and the place I belong is no gas station on the side of the road somewhere in Canada, and its not some quiet house in the suburbs of Sacramento either. I belong wherever my family is and wherever my heart is. I think that the next step for me in my little journey is not searching for a place, not searching for anything. Letting life happen, not knowing what state I would be in the next day or what I might have for dinner that night is something that makes me the same nomadic little pastors daughter that I was when I moved from Canada. Letting my life play out itself as I pursue music or theology or whatever I decide to do is going to work itself out in the end because I know that even if I'm unaware, or awkward at first, my life and my heart will always belong to the three little girls in that Fun Finder, playing games writing songs, eating cereal. Those are the people that hold my heart and who have accepted me throughout everything.
"You're already home when you feel loved" -Lost in my Mind; The Head and the Heart
