On going home

My adult life can be measured in distinct increments of time and space.

The timeline started with a year in Mount Vernon at the newspaper, then a month in Florida, then six months in Texas, six months back in Florida, three years in Maine and so on. These days I can look at a photograph in any album and point to details such as snow, a plate of steaming lobster, palm trees or a great sandy beach and remember exactly where, when, who and what was going on there. It's nice to be able to put my life in compartments like this for easy memory access.

The downside to this transient life is that everything is in a constant state of change for me, leaving me with no firm place to call home. I know now that no single time or place fully defines who I am, but rather each chapter has left a mark on me and all of these places have become part of who I am. Even when I visit my hometown--where I spent my first 20-some years--I feel a bit out of place.

Here are some possible reasons why:

I grew up among farm fields, but now I live on a concrete grid by the beach.

I learned to speak in the northwest, where the dialect is supposedly void of any accent, but from my time in the South I've found great use for the term "y'all" in everyday speech.

I crave time in a tent near the mountains, but I also love sand in my toes.

I've developed a taste for the world's best coffee and salmon, but also the richness of fried shrimp and hush puppies and a dirty-water dog right from a roadside vendor. And now I think about fish tacos with lime at least once a week.

My closet contains wool sweaters and long underwear, sundresses and flip-flops, North Face jackets and ballgowns.

My road atlas has so many creases and tears that some of the 50 states are simply disintegrating and we'd be lost if we ever have need to travel through them.

Though I feel fully present in the place where I am, I do long for our old homes. I sometimes dream of having just a taste of that lobster bisque I slurped in Maine on the eve of L's birth to remember how it felt to be filled with anticipation yet clueless about the changes that would begin during the 40 hours that followed.

I'd like to stroll beneath ancient oaks in Jacksonville and say hello to neighbors against the deafening chorus of cicadas on a sultry summer evening.

I'd like to sip a cold banana latte on Sept. 11, 2001, and listen to my patriotic Turkish-American boss at the cafe where I worked, talk passionately about the importance of keeping the coffee flowing and the camaraderie alive that day.

And when I get to visit my hometown in Washington every few months, I drink in the velvety green forestscapes, the towering Cascades, the scent of cherry blossoms and daffodils on the crisp breeze and the way you can never really get the mud off of your shoes and you really don't need to.

Now here I am again, under palm trees, listening to the songs of nesting birds and my toddler's original composition on the xylophone. It's beautiful here in California and there's really no place I'd rather be if indeed I could choose a permanent home. This place is leaving it's impression on me and on my whole family.

But one day, I will have to choose. When the Navy no longer needs us or we no longer have use for it, N and I will have to get out that tattered atlas and determine where to plant some real roots for the first time. That scares me a little but also gives me great comfort in the idea of eventual continuity. Then I think time will stand still for me in some ways and I'll have a hard time keeping track of those years without the reference of frequent scenery changes. Maybe then, if you ask me where I'm from, I'll be able to answer without hesitation.