what it's like.

'I know what it's like. I know what it means to leave a family.' She said, as I was opening the refridgerator. She was talking, of course, about this passage that Austin and I were making– the leaving of a life and our people to embark on an adventure, and then to settle into a place that holds so much.

We are embarking on our travels in less than one week, and in the meantime, we've driven ourselves and our worldly possessions in a u-haul from Seattle to San Francisco. Movement isn't so much conducive to reflection, which is partly why I've been so grateful for it lately. It's nice to have breaks of emotions, it's nice to just feel the migration sometimes.

[greenlake, seattle]

The truth is that it's entirely daunting to write about moving homes, even in the midst of doing it. My mind has sifted through it weaving through Oregon pines and California golden hills– how to communicate the sinuous river of feelings inside with humor and grace, let alone fluency?!– and has rendered itself silent. Or, perhaps, just calm. I think that the process of leaving, in so many ways, always has to mirror the process of becoming and belonging. It takes a while, doesn't it? It takes time to make and find a new tribe, and like all good things, there is a continuous and creeping ebb that begins to gain momentum. Suddenly you can't breathe because you're laughing so hard in the dairy aisle of Safeway, or you're crying in your living room with your roomates over the fact that people hurt you and life can be hard sometimes. Without knowing it was happening, you are known for better or worse and if that's not family, then I don't know what is.

It will take time. It will always take time.