I ran past the elementary school where I arrived on the first day of Kindergarten; I was the only girl happily dressed in jeans and boots surrounded by girls in frills and flounces.
I passed the library that I rode my bike to a million times; the place where books first tugged at my heart and I learned the thrill of their world.
My feet traced footsteps that I naughtily made in wet cement on the way home from the bus stop when I was seven years old.
I could run forever here, spurred on by memories and meaningful moments. This place belongs to me and I belong to it.
I might forget that this place is mine if I couldn’t come back and visit it.
If I never came back I would surely forget that to belong to a place fills your lungs with air that is sweet and satisfying.
The knowledge would fade that comes with the sights of Eucalyptus trees along a canyon road, purple agapanthus flowers bursting out of flower beds, and houses built on hilltops. With these sights in view I know that there are places in this world that a girl’s heart can run with joy endlessly.
Because, here, I feel knitted to the earth and the sky and the air itself. The joy is in the belonging, when your life seems to fit into a place like the last piece of a puzzle snugly rests in its ordained spot.
I don’t live here anymore. Whenever I need it, though, California will be waiting for me to come back and remember this:
There is a place full of joy and it will always be home, even when you live somewhere else.
