who holds us
places can feel like people too
A long and consistent conversation, sometimes fight, my boyfriend and I have is over where to live. Where do we want to live? Where where where? We recently moved to Austin from LA, almost 2 years ago now but it feels like yesterday. It never quite felt like home here. I know 2 years is not a lot of time. But god, I miss the ocean and the mountains being seen within one gaze. I miss foggy evenings when the marine layer would sweep in. I miss the sunsets. My god, the sunsets in the fall! Top tier magic. Beyond anything else. Bright pink, the whole sky and everything else too. Like God offered us a pink blanket to cozy up in.
The thing is, California has always been my home. A sanctuary. A place that has revealed its beauty to me, and I do not take that lightly. What an honor. It was there for me at a time when I didn’t have anything else. California - her land, her waters, her wind - became a mother for me at a time when I needed one. She raised me. And when life feels vulnerable, where do we turn? Back home, to our mothers’, our support systems. And that is what California is to me. Even if it’s imperfect and expensive. Even if it’s no longer what she used to be. Her land remains. I want to go lay on the grass at my elementary school soccer field right now.
When you live your life so connected, so enraptured by life itself, then places become people too. They become people with their own frequency and essence, with their own story and wisdom, with their flaws and medicine. California is no longer just a place for me, but she’s family. She’s who holds me when no one else will. She has always been that for me, even though I never fully realized it.
It’s always a wise choice to write a love letter to the places that raised you. To send all the love that it gave you back home. I might bake California a cake, or bring some tobacco to lay on the land the next time I visit.
All these little prayers so that maybe, one day, she calls me back home to her.
I felt like I could kiss better in California
My lips softened more there
parted and waiting
eager. open.
The fruit stands are so full
We could kiss at the farmers markets’
maybe make the apples blush
and eat avocados with our hands
sometimes I think
California was the only place
magical enough to hold
all the pain I felt there
she soaked it up into the ground
and grew oranges
Please see - Los Angeles by Big Thief