Star Girl

For many of us, our hometowns are dots on rugged maps, our life trajectories as linear as airport runways. We know our best friends from elementary school, and we see our family and neighbors at the grocery store. Many of us have a regular order at a local coffee shop or gas station, and the people inside might even know us too.

That’s not me, though.

If I could point to my hometown on a map, I’d draw you a constellation, and you’d call me star girl. If I could show you my life trajectory, it’d be a messy, unchoreographed dance; like a bumblebee leading its hive to fields of flowers.

If I could, I’d show you the mountains I’ve lived within, the coasts I’ve washed away from, the little valley cities I sank into. I’d show you little towns, dusty ones with webs in all the corners; and I’d show you suburbia, with its thinly concealed strip malls.

If I could, I’d show you the deep, scorching, South Carolina heat I turned brown in; the sweet, Georgia peaches that melted across my tongue, the muggy Florida swamp whose waves carried me north yet again. I’d pull you along to San Francisco, and show you most things are golden there. I’d whisk you away to Salt Lake City too, where the sun glazes the mountains in amber and the wildlife is almost always bigger than you.

If I could, I’d show you all those things, how they buried themselves beneath my skin and transformed me piece by piece. I’d show you the intricacies of the pick-up-and-go lifestyle, the way all the names and faces and homes blur like scenery passing by on the highway, the way it all becomes nameless and shapeless after a while. I’d show you the way that sometimes the only constant is the big brown carboard boxes and big yellow moving trucks.

Then I’d show you how I’ve landed in a big city, with towers whose long claws scrape into the clouds like low-hanging fruit. I’d show you the magic of every face on the street being novel, the allure of embedding yourself in a city that may never know you - no matter how long you stay. I’d show you the fantasy of gliding along the city sidewalks and feeling like part of one huge pulse, the endless ebb and flow of lives just going on. But most of all, I’d show you how the city would be no different when you left it, and how in many ways that’s much more tranquil a notion than having to wonder how life changed after you were just a memory.

But at some point the exhilaration of bouncing home to home would fizzle out, and you’d ask, ‘Isn’t it lonely?’

And I’d smile, and look up. Because no matter where we paused, there would be a constant beyond big brown boxes and big yellow trucks. There’d be an unfathomably big, wide sky, with lots of little stars, and they’d glimmer at us with all the secrets that only something as omnipotent as the sky could fathom.

“No.” I’d respond, of course, and maybe you’d get it, or maybe you wouldn’t. Because it was all home, after all, wasn’t it? I was no more ocean eyes than earthy hands, or asphalt-hardened feet. It was all a little bit of me; and somehow I hadn’t felt like I belonged to nowhere – no, I belonged to everywhere. I belonged to our earth, our stars, and most of all, our people. It was all home and I wanted to live in all of it.