everywhere, but nowhere

all at once

the evening of the summer solstice:

8 PM, post facial glow, chicken tenders and an Italian mocktail spritz for dinner, soft, rose-coloured sheets, dried lavender, baby’s breath, 2 candles, sacral chakra oil, and a lip mask.

Hi friends,

I am 7 days into being 32 years old. And I want to tell you what exactly happened on the evening of my 32nd birthday, but I’m not ready to write about it yet. And not because it was bad, but because it was beautiful. It was beautiful and held so much meaning and truth - but it needs time. It needs time to sit in my bones, to float around my apartment, to float around in the universe and in the ether around me.

Instead, I want to write to you about something else.

One of my favourite prompts that I ask in my writing groups is this:

Where do you go to feel at home again?

And it’s a layered question. For some, home is going back to that place where they grew up. Calling a family member, a friend, or a loved one. It’s going back to a neighbourhood, it’s revisiting a memory that felt like both a breath of fresh air and of a reprieve.

But what if that traditional meaning of home felt like confinement? Of limiting yourself, learning to pinpoint certain aspects that you need to “dim down” in order to achieve “success” in whichever way was modelled to you?

What if home was a reminder of never being enough? Or of being too much? The wings being clipped, or the bird trapped in the gilded cage?

What if home became something entirely different? What if it became about the search for something we never had, something we never thought belonged to us?

In my mind’s eye, I see a garden and a fountain. And at night, I see a sky full of stars. I see the summer, and I see this girl.

I see how her days bring her endless possibilities. I see butterflies and I see how they swirl around her. Two land on her right shoulder. There’s a wooden table. She wears a yellow dress with a notebook sprawled open in front of her.

Hope.

I’ve learned that the one constant in life is change. Home turned into something I never thought it would be. Home is the world I created when the outer voices got too loud. Home was rebuilt out of necessity, out of this new need of survival and of existence. Of rebuilding and reclaiming. Home was the Ligurian sea, that white brick wall, and those Roman tree-lined streets. Home was movement, and it was the trains that transported me to different worlds.

Heal.

“Is this the longest you’ve been back in the city?” My friend asks me. It’s a Saturday morning, I have a coffee in hand, and we’re walking to get fresh groceries at our local supermarket. They’re selling bushels of tomatoes for $3, and I couldn’t be more excited.

I nod. “9 months. But the universe always puts you exactly where you need to be.”

We wander around the grocery store. My basket is filled with the usual: tomatoes, a cucumber, 3 peaches, an avocado, lettuce, chicken. I have to be strategic in how much I can carry on my walk home. I check out, set my bag down on the bench, and wait for my friend to finish.

“It’s cherry season.” An old woman sets her grocery bag down beside me. She too, is rearranging herself. Dividing things into different bags to make them easier to carry home. Her skin is golden and her smile is soft. She takes out a salmon filet and puts it in another tote.

“Are they good this year? I haven’t tried them yet.”

She nods. “They are! I only bought a few. I live alone, and I can never finish a whole bag.”

I smile. “Me too.”

She finishes packing. “Have a great day.” She looks at me and smiles. Our eyes lock, and I feel warm.

I still daydream of the the French countryside. Of a little apartment by a lavender field. Or of a Juliet balcony by the sea. Carrying a baguette, a bottle of red, and a fresh carton of eggs into my all-white apartment in Bordeaux. I dream of the sun in Provence beating down on the bridge of my nose and of my collarbone.

But for now, I am here.

And for now, I am home.

It’s beautiful to be everywhere, all at once. Isn’t it?

I love you,

Emily