My love for Montana is well documented – in writing, in photos, in actions. I know the John Steinbeck quote by heart and it often comes to me as a whisper in my head – “I am in love with Montana…and it’s hard to analyze love when you are in it”. That has been the rub for me this last six months as I tried to make my home in North Florida, with a man that I not only love, but like and who seems a good fit for me and me for him. And we have fun and he makes me laugh like no one ever has. And he never called “his” home anything but “ours” from the moment I arrived there. But I’m rolling west with my dog, but without the man, to my home – in Montana. And although my heart is torn, there will be no turning back.
About 100 times a day I ask myself if I’m running towards or away. I think it is an important distinction – and the answer is that I don’t really know. And it is complicated by the fact that I do love Montana and my way of life there and that I do love the man and I don’t want to be a woman who will not or cannot or does not want to share my life.
Kyran Pittman is a writer who came from Newfoundland and now lives in the American south. In the profile of her blog Notes to self, she writes: “I am often asked how I got here. I wake up every single morning of my life asking the same question.”
Her family is currently between houses, having sold one, bought a different one and waiting on the new one to be ready. And it was a stressful year that spurred this change of homes. Meanwhile she, her husband and their 3 sons are living in a small condo from which both she and her husband also work.
In a post on her blog, Uprooted: After the Storm, Kyran writes of comforting her eldest son after his grief for the old house spills out:
I half-heartedly began the speech that “home is where the heart is,” then abandoned it, because it’s bullshit. I’ve been uprooted enough myself to know that sometimes home is a physical place you need desperately to get back to.
Tell a banked fish that home is where the heart is.
Her words caused my own grief to spill as I read them. Am I running towards or away or both? I believe that I have to go home - alone - to find the answer. We, Karl and I, continue the roll west tomorrow.
Mrs. G. says:
I hope you have a fulfilling journey. I read Kyran’s post and was equally moved.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:08 PM
ann says:
Kyran has a gift for metaphor and simile - it is REAL - full of life experience and puts feelings to words in a way as to paint a clear picture of meaning.
April 19th, 2008 at 6:39 PM
Beth says:
It’s a pleasure to be allowed a little glimpse into your life. You live so authentically and risk being vulnerable. Thanks for stopping in and reminding me about the really important stuff. It is my belief that God nudges our thinking and that God sent you this time to nudge mine. Thank you.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:37 AM