Moving To The Edge of the World

Wind flew down the main road, over the bridge and through the trees, past the open horse field, and down the road that looked much more like a 60-year-old veterinarian and farmer’s own personal driveway. This is what she and her family of four considered to themself as they turned down this road, driving past seven or so houses before finding the one at the end of the lane.

She waved politely, innocently, at the people littering the side of the road in their own front yards, the ones who might soon be their new neighbors. Arriving at the end of the lane, she got out of the car, stepping out and looking about. The prospect of being somewhere new and starting their next chapter was on all of their minds.

Her feet padded through the grass, excited to be there. A little ten-year-old girl, the oldest of four, didn’t know what was in store for her. All she knew was that there was something about this house. Something in the way it was falling apart, yet standing so proudly in a half acre that seemed to be made for it.

For some reason, it felt like home.

Even though there was nothing there, the walls were falling apart and the yard wasn’t anything much, and all there was in the garage was some beaten up wood and a car that surely would never be driven anywhere again, it felt familiar. For no reason at all, it felt good to be there. Even in the middle of nowhere it felt surrounded. It felt full. It felt alive.

Her family didn’t buy that house, though. It wasn’t a house that they would ever live in, nor a place that she would ever actually call her home, or so she thought. It wasn’t the house that built her. It wasn’t the one that had her handprints in the concrete of the patio, or the one her family members would walk in and out of for holidays to come. It wasn’t the one she would fly down the driveway of in a neighbor’s kayak in a snowstorm, just trying to get a little joy in a power outage.

She had never lived here. This place had never meant more to her than the significance she had felt that day when the for sale sign was still in the yard. All she had felt in that home was a glimpse of what could be.

But somehow, at the end of two decade, she could still hold onto the fact that love was real. Even though it hadn’t been evidenced to her through her parents and their divorce a few short years later, she still believed that she was worth something and that she could add things to the world despite a failed first year of college, and even though her life wasn’t perfect. Even though friends went to and from, there was this comfort and peace with roots planted in the ground.

She drifted in and out of that town, here and to, to and fro. All she knew was that that house felt good. That the tree outside was way too much fun to climb and that there was so much going on but so little to worry about out there.

She went off and did different things. Her parents didn’t stay married forever, and she struggled to believe that life was worth it at times. Again, she went to and from, from and to. The house was only brought up one more time, while she was away at college, 300 miles away from home. A friend she met freshman year had grandparents who lived on the outskirts of her hometown, near the same place that her family had almost shifted home bases too back when she was ten years old.

“You mean, like Cherry Tree lane?” she asked, her eyes curious, brought back to that fateful day when her and her sister and brothers had named the stray cat, imagined many a playdate in the barn, and wondered which bedrooms would belong to whom.

Twenty years later, she walked down that driveway again. She parked at the end, rather than close to the house, feeling much like a guest but feeling so at home synonymously. She, now a 30-year-old woman with a medical degree, and a husband, let her feed walk an unnecessary yet ever so intentional path down the driveway, every rock felt through her thin tennis shoes.

She walked her way down and all the way up to the tree in the front yard, to where it felt like the real edge of the world. And not the edge of the world in the way that you would fall off and never be found again, but in a way that you were so tucked away in the corner of glory that nothing could ever touch you there. She looked down at the little girl, who was holding her hand so tight, the little girl asked her what kind of tree she was looking at.

That mother was me, the child my daughter.

“Honey,” I said with a smile, grabbing my daughter’s hand and gesturing up at the blooming plant in front of me. “This is a pear tree.” It was still there, standing as a symbol, I recalled from a literature elective I took my sophomore year of college. A pear tree symbolizes comfort, stability, and the peace that one contains on the inside, despite the turmoil that goes on around.

“Mommy, are we gonna live here?” my daughter asked, tugging at my flannel shirt I had worn specifically for the occasion of purchasing the farm we now stood on. It was just then that another car pulled up, that of the realtor I had called a few hours before, ready to move my family to the house of my dreams.

It was more than a house. It was home. And just like that pear tree, it had stayed, blooming, preparing for a beautiful harvest season. Like most growing things, it had adapted, just as I had. It had prepared itself for its inhabitants. And just like the pears were to the tree, so I was to this house. Most would think I was done growing and learning, but I knew I wasn’t.

I picked up the little girl, hosting her on my hip, smiling and putting her nose to mine in a true bunny kiss.

“Let’s go find your room,” I smiled.

“Can we take a pear?” the little girl asked, reaching to pick one off the tree. Her mother cooperated, leaning over, grinning all the while, watching as her daughter picked a perfect pear off the tree. I thought back to mine, the one I had picked off of the tree only a couple decades before, the same look of fascination, excitement, and awe written across my face.

“Y’all ready to be home?” the realtor called out with a smile.

“Absolutely,” I smiled back, kissing my daughter on the forehead and walking towards the front door for another time, the barn in the back, the sun setting in the distance. I was home, ready to settle down at the edge of the world, with enough pears on that small but steady tree to sustain us for a lifetime.

The end.