That question always eludes me. I have lived in multiple states, in all types of towns, been back and forth across the Mississippi river, never north of the Mason Dixon line. But people want a place, a town, a specific site.
“Where are you from?”
We left Senatobia, Mississippi 30 years ago. I was 5
years old. We packed a big truck and the family station wagon and drove across
the country. Late in the night we pulled into a new driveway. Little did I know
that my nomadic life had begun.
Mississippi to Oklahoma to Texas to Tennessee to Missouri
to Tennessee to Oklahoma to North Carolina to Texas to Tennessee to Arkansas to…
It’s hard for me to comprehend that people are born in a
place and stay in a place and live in a place and 20, 30, 40, 50 years pass and
there they are. It’s hard for me to comprehend that I can drive 2.5 hours and
rewind my life 30 years.
“Where are you
from?”
It was odd to see the people of my infancy. To see faces
that remained in my memory but didn’t always have a name to go with them. To
feel arms that had held me as a child to hug me as an adult. To hear a southern
drawl that had once captivated my earliest of words.
“Where are you
from?”
But it really isn’t that odd. Time has no effect on love on
people on truths. These people loved me before I was and love me still that I
am.
“Where are you
from?”
My home has found itself in many places in many times. I
am not from a single place. I do not know that. What I do know, is that one
day, all those people from all those places and all those times will be with me
and will love me because I am. One day, I will find myself with people who have
gone before and will go after, who lived here or there, who knew me when. One
day I will go home and learn where I am from. Until then I’m a pilgrim, a sojourner,
a nomad.
“Where am I from?”
I’m from heaven. And I truly can’t wait to go home.
No comments:
Post a Comment