I've been feeling nostalgic for the Northwest here of late--probably because it's been so blazing hot in Texas this summer. (My mom tells me it's been hot in Boise, too, but I'm betting it doesn't feel as hot as 35 days of temperatures over 100.) My mom, sister and older niece went on a church retreat in an area near the Sawtooths last weekend. One of my nieces now lives in Montana. The pictures they've all been posting on Facebook make me want to just sit down and weep.
Which is interesting, because I was explaining to a friend just a few days ago that the Northwest doesn't really feel like my home anymore. Why, then, do I keep checking the Chronicle's job listings, hoping to see a job opening in Idaho? Or Montana? Or Washington? Or Oregon? Or even Colorado?
I've already written about the weirdly conflicted relationship I have with Boise--I know moving back there probably wouldn't be a good idea. Much as I'd like to be closer to my parents, especially now that my dad's health is failing and my mom needs all the help she can get, it's easier for me to be the person I am now when I keep some space between the me that was and the me that is. Last time I visited my parents, my dad said "I'm still surprised that you're a college English professor--I always thought you'd go into teaching the deaf. You were always reading books about that Helen Keller."
Yes, I was. When I was ten years old.
Another good friend of mine, a theology professor, recently wrote a blog entry about Mark 6:4, the Bible passage in which we're told that even prophets have trouble earning respect when they go home--back to the people who knew them as children tromping through the flowerbeds, terrorizing the cat, procrastinating on completing their chores. I suppose even Jesus's neighbors wondered if he'd ever amount to anything. I know it's hard for my family to see me as something other than a loudmouth teenager with lots of uninformed opinions--that's who I was the last time I lived at home. When I talk about growing up with my dad, sometimes my husband just shakes his head in disbelief. "That doesn't even sound like the same person I know," he says. And of course, it's not.
So I don't feel at home in Boise, in the sense of feeling like that's where I can be my honest self--but the Northwest is definitely a place I'm connected to. There's something about a horizon ridged with mountains that puts a big lump in my throat. Something about the smell of pine trees does the same thing. I often hear people talk about the smells they associate with their grandmothers' houses, but I didn't know my grandparents when I was growing up--it's the smell of the forest that catapults me back into my childhood, back into the camper with my parents and my brother. Sometimes, that kind of emotional response can get confused with the need to take some action, to make a change.
But just this morning my husband and I were talking about whether we'd really want to move farther north, out of the Texas heat, if we had the chance. We both agree that the Midwest is a place we don't feel compelled to return to--we've lived in Kansas, Iowa and Missouri, and none of those places has a hold on either of us. The Northeast might be a possibility; we've never lived there, so it would be a new adventure.
And the Northwest? Maybe.
"At this point,I just think I'm more of a live oak guy than a pine tree guy," my husband said.
I don't know if I'd get choked up over a picture of a live oak tree, but I do know that I'd miss the live oaks and their beautiful bonsai shapes if we left Texas. And the wildflowers growing by the roadsides every spring. And the great big storms with thunder loud enough to rattle the windows--those used to scare me, but now I find myself outside with the neighbors, watching the clouds roll in, welcoming the drama.
I suppose I may never feel about Texas the way I feel about Idaho, but I'm not sure I need to feel that way in order for this to be my home. Maybe what I'm responding to when I see a photo of mountains and pine trees isn't the Idaho landscape at all, but what it helps me understand: the enormity of creation, its ability to remind us of how small and insignificant we are in the greater scheme of things.
