home

Standing by the gnarled old maple tree,

The path to which is worn bare

By countless others who, like me, make the small climb from the park to visit it.

I sat here the day I learned my family was divorcing, and on an early date with the man who would become the love of life, and at eight months pregnant, and now-

I wonder if I will be able to keep coming here now that so many people love this place too. Displacement moves toward my family like a visible tide; a funeral march.

So let it come. The relics of my life are gone. The childhood homes, the secret groves, the family places, the manufactured home by the ocean.

What was that I swore at 18, backpack slung over a shoulder, leaving home?

Home is a living breathing being. Its form can change. 

Grief is the bone that holds our love together, and only what we love can save us.

To live is to grieve endlessly even as we are simultaneously broken open to the beauty and tentativeness that is living.

I offer the maple my thanks and turn back..