roots.
I am always leaving. Even when I’m arriving, I am readying myself to go, again. I set aside the boxes I’ve just unpacked, ready for another journey.
Ten houses as a child. Ten more as an adult. In five years of matrimony I have lived in as many homes.
When I was 19, a friend challenged me to put down ROOTS. I was aghast—offended even—nothing sounded less appealing. A decade later, roots are all I crave, even as I search out my next destination.
So I made people my roots. I watered them with cross-Atlantic phone calls; nourished them with emails.
They flourished, far away—tall evergreens—and each time I touched down in Vancouver, their pine needle scent greeted me, mingled with sea salt and wet cement.
But I always left again, with no soft cedar sachets to remind me, and within days the smell left my Scottish sweaters, replace with the foreign aroma of pot pies, haggis and diesel fumes.
And then last month, I ARRIVED. I told my roots I was “home” and that this time I was tossing the cardboard boxes. This time I was nailing pictures to the walls; signing the two-year contract; making dinner plans a month in advance.
But the truth is, I weasled away a carton of packing paper in the back of my new walk-in closet. Because you just never know when you may need to pack up again.
[December 2010. Sherry’s Restaurant. Seattle]
