My niece, Arrianne, took that wonderful photo of a place called Woodhaven in Jamaica. Everything about this picture slipped inside me with a familiarity deeper than memory. It's enough to make me homesick for a land where I have not lived for going on forty-three years. Sometimes, when the news gets especially cacophonous, I imagine moving back there. But then I remember my children are born here. This northern place is their home and so it is my home, too. Home might be a land somewhere, but home is also the people you love best, and wherever they are planted, so you are, too.
I had so much contact with my kids at the beginning of last week, I found myself pining for them at the end of the week. And yet I knew I had to let them be, release them yet again to live their lives, without trying to hold on, as I often wish I could do. Everything is so alive for them, the world such a playground, their friends so joyfully present, it makes me nostalgic for my own youth sometimes. I think they have embraced their twenties with more conscious exuberance than I ever allowed mine. What do they know that I didn't? Is it because they grew up in this city and know it like a native, while I was making home in a new country at their age? In any case, watching them from a wholesome distance, I feel sometimes that I squandered my youth, and why didn't I appreciate all that I had, worrying instead about what might be?
Things turned out pretty well, really, so all my brooding was time wasted, a thief of what was. I am trying these days to simply be present for what is, and when the day feels lonely, accept that too, knowing it is never the absolute or lasting truth.
I understand your yearning for "home" , and "tribe"- I yearn as well, though my home is now where I park myself, and my tribe is universal- there is still that small empty place in our being that ...yearns. As for youth and wasting it- haven't we all suffered that lament? But, then, where would we be if not for all of that "wasting"? Your life is and has been most remarkable, beautiful and well - as I see it, very nearly PERFECT.
ReplyDeletethis is only temporary I keep telling myself. that was my mantra when things were not going well at different stages of my life, and truly, things did change. now I keep it in mind concerning our current political situation trying to believe in it fervently. I was born here but if things keep going the way they are I fantasize about leaving. I loved Portugal, could live there except my kids and grandkids are here and yes, home is where the family is.
ReplyDeleteWise musings, my dear.
ReplyDeleteAnd that picture- oh!
Just this very morning I was thinking again about the difference in our lives defined by the city versus the country. I absolutely CANNOT imagine living in an apartment in a huge city but you do know what it is like to live where there is more earth and water than pavement. Funny how one sort of life appeals to some people and another sort to others.
And I think that your children seem easier and freer than you did not only because they were born where they live now but also because they know that their most beloveds are right there too- mama and daddy- just in case, and they do not have to miss them. They have you and in that comes great strength.
Thank you for making the beauty of Jamaica real for us. Thank you for the thought about a home in ourselves. Sending love.
ReplyDeleteI read a great quote the other day about longing for our youth. Not sure it completely fits here but it helped me and my longings. It said (and I paraphrase) that we don't need to miss our youth because we have it all in our memory.
ReplyDeleteMy kids seem so much more present than I ever was. Even more than I am now, actually. Looking back I see that depression and anxiety had its grip on me at a very young age, way, way before we were talking about it. I wonder what life would have been like with the knowledge that I have now? Because now it seems to late to change anything. We can say the platitudes that it isn’t but I have no idea where to start. What I really want to do is palliative care in people’s homes but starting seems so huge.
ReplyDeleteStunning photo! I just spent the weekend "home," where I grew up, where I haven't lived since I was a young woman. I found it overwhelming, exhilarating, and filled with people and places I love. I share your yearning for that "familiarity deeper than memory."
ReplyDeleteI wish I had enjoyed my youth more instead of rushing headlong into children. Wish I had gone to university to study neuroscience, travelled, lived but I chose not to. I suspect our children will feel the same as us when they watch their own children leave the nest:)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wonder what it might feel like to be young in this era of time. My 20s were more than 40 years ago, and I remember feeling free and adventurous. I bought 10 acres of land and built a cabin in southern Oregon. I traveled across the country more times than I can count. Would I feel as free now? How much of our lives are defined by the era in which we come of age? This beautiful photo and post make me wonder about so many things. Do young people feel hopeful for the future? When I read your words, you remind me that they do. Thank you for that.
ReplyDeleteThings DID turn out pretty well! You're so lucky, so blessed and so are your beautiful babies! The list of all the things I look back on and wish I'd done differently is a long one but I try to remember that it could not have been any other way and it all brought me here. That's a beautiful thing. XXOO
ReplyDeleteI'm catching up on your blog and just overwhelmed by the beauty of it -- I so understand the regret feeling and have them often myself, but my god. Where would we be if things hadn't unfolded exactly as they have with all the riches and beauty?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it wonderful to have this memory of a natural paradise, the way a picture brings back smells and sounds, too.
ReplyDeleteThat is a beautiful picture. Would it be possible (or even desirable) for you and your husband to eventually live part of each year in the Caribbean, doing a "snowbird" thing? You could renew your roots in the winters and at the same time remain close to your kids the rest of the year.
ReplyDeleteI also regret a lot of the time I spent worrying as a young person. But I suppose that builds us into the more confident (?) people we are when we're older -- realizing that things really aren't that serious, and we can let go of a lot of that senseless ruminating and anxiety.
That photo of the tree and the bark and the light is perfection. They do say youth is wasted on the young, ha ha, not really. It is wonderful to behold young family embracing the now.
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