How do you know when you’re home?

When I flew back to D.C. on Sunday, I realized I was flying home, to this city, for the last time.

Come Friday, I will have a new home, a new city, a new chapter to begin. The page quivers between my eager fingers—I cannot wait to turn it. 

And yet, this morning on my way to work, the first genuine tear ran down my cheek.

Yep, get me jet-lagged and sleep-deprived and stressed out enough and even a bad Matt Nathanson song can unleash a torrent of emotion, at 7:45 a.m. no less. The enormity of this upcoming week finally hit—my last week in D.C., my last two days of work, my last dinner with two dear friends, my last chance to say good-bye to so very many people and places. As I sped down Connecticut Avenue, my body wracked with exhaustion and my mind buzzing with too many to-dos, I cried and cried.

Strange to start the week off on such a weary, drama-stricken note, considering I’m coming off a gloriously relaxing, rejuvenating trip out to Portland, Oregon, that included: an early-morning walk/hike along the Oregon coast; a brunch consisting entirely of artisan cheeses and breads and meats and strong black coffee; an afternoon of staring out a window while driving through woods of alder trees and evergreens, up mountains, down into valleys, and then back up again; a morning roaming the food and merchant vendors at the infamous Saturday market; a night sitting beside a wood-burning stove, placing together the pieces of a child’s puzzle, and listening to the Rolling Stones and random conversations around me; an early evening of beach soccer and football, of laughing deliriously with my friend, of staring out at the sunset and smiling.  

A wonderful, wonderful journey, to say the least.

And, a journey that, surprisingly, gave me a clearly defined sense of place and home.

My friend and her friends from high school have traveled the globe, lived abroad, speak German fluently, and took me to my first authentic Moroccan restaurant, and yet, this eclectic group ardently embraces their small piece of the world with such undisguised affection, with such uninhibited authority. I would ask a question about this small geographical landmark or that teeny, rural town we just drove through, and they always had answers—and a story, to boot. As the outsider, I quickly realized that their group, their friendships, embodied the close-knit kin only a childhood spent in a small, under-privileged town can create. Their home was, in a way, each other.

I envied their closeness, their endearments to one another. I felt privileged to be included, if only for awhile.

My ties to Pennsylvania pull me tightly at times, pinching, breaking the skin. But, I’ve remained close with few people from those long-ago days. Even now, when I think about it, I know very, very little of the terrain, the legends, the history, of the place I spent the majority of my life. I don’t remember the names of streets I drove down hundreds of times.

How can that be?  Me, the observer, the reader, story-teller, the one who always wanted to write it all down. How do I know so little of the place—and, even, the people—I call home?

I am leaving Washington, D.C., just as it’s begun to feel it fits. I left Amherst just as it began to fit, too. My friend and her friends returned to the place they outgrew years and years ago simply because going back felt right. My restless spirit has never known such peace.

I wonder, how do you know when to stay still, to let the clothes loosen and settle around you, to plant your feet firmly, resolutely?

How do you know when you’re home?

And, more grating still, how do I know Boston will take me in its grasp, gently, and help me find a small patch of soil in which I can, finally, plant some roots?