The place you are meant to be...(an artsy-fartsy, non-cupcake post)

Sometimes at night, I find myself standing in the darkness, staring out at the moon. Somehow, standing there alone, it’s comforting to know that no matter where I go in this world, the same moon is hanging above those I love. I catch myself wondering nonsensically if anyone else is staring at the moon at that moment, thinking about me… then I generally shake myself out of it and crawl into bed.

It’s so difficult for me to fathom how I came to this point, how I came to this place.  Nothing in my life is as I would have imagined it to be ten years ago, five years ago, three. I am not who I imagined I would be.

There is a section of path near our building where young oaks grow tall along the sides of the trail, forming a ceiling of leafy gothic arches and white sky. For that stretch of path, separated from anything to yank myself back into the present, it’s possible for me to imagine that I’m somewhere else…some time else. I used to wish for that. I used to wish to be in another time. I felt convinced I was meant to be in another era, another time in history. I grew out of it, I suppose. It was nothing more than the wistful dreams of an angsty teenager, convinced that no one in the world could possibly feel the same way. I’m sure at some point it’s a thought that crosses most everyone’s mind.

Our town is also a place that’s stuck, uncomfortable with its place in time. We all live in various remnants of its heyday. In the enormous brick cotton mill that made it a “company town,” in the rows and rows of converted boarding houses, in the mid-20^th century rowhouses of brick and shingle. The people, too, seem caught out of time. With no back porches, people gather on the stoops to escape the oppressing summer heat of their airless houses. Shirtless men sit drinking their beer for dinner, while women in shorts and tank tops smoke on the steps, keeping watchful eyes on the kids riding bikes, running up the sidewalk barefoot, drawing in chalk. A beat up sedan drives by, windows down, base thumping and vibrating everything within a 100-foot radius. An anachronism.

I can hear the cicadas now on my evening walks. I didn’t expect to find cicadas here, and the joy that I felt when I first heard their screeching calls took me by surprise. It is not a sound I had ever expected to miss. Like so much else, it reminds me of a different time.

Growing up, I was certain that I was going to be a country girl all my life. Keep me out of the cities, they’re too crowded. Now it seems that too has changed. While I’m not unhappy here, I find that I love Manhattan. I love the bustle, the subways, the characters, the rudeness, the kindness, the cafes and coffee shops and bakeries. We talk about a future there, but what use is planning anymore? And yet, when I go home, back to the mountains and the evergreens and the rivers, I find it hard to pull myself away. I love the calmness, the quietness, the predictability. Like so much else that I find I am no longer sure of, I no longer know where I belong.

I am sure that if I tried hard enough I could find a quote from someone long dead and purportedly much wiser than myself that would say something like, “The place that you are meant to be is the place where you are now.”

For now I know I will find no answers. For now, I will have to content myself with being right where I am, right when I am.