This is home

"Well you should be, because you're wrong about things being different because they're not the same. Things are different except in a different way. You're still the same, only I've been a fool... but I'm not now."

"Oh."
"So long as I'm different don't you thing that... well maybe things could be the same again... only a little different, huh?"

-- an exchange between Cary Gran and Irene Dunne, in The Awful Truth.

I am driving down the Merrit Parkway on a Monday morning.  Tree boughs dripping with autumn kiss overhead, burnt oranges and deep reds contrasting against a light gray sky.  Already a few trees stand naked, shivering in the fall wind.  Around me cars weave in and out of traffic, filled with people moving forward, to meetings, to work, to shop, to breakfast.  Though perforated by holes of civilized society, like asphalt and guard rails, the mere sight of the sloping treeline, a breathing Charles Wysocki painting, makes my heart swell slightly in my chest. 

Since high school, I wanted to get away from New England, its SUV weilding stepford wives, congested highways and overpriced neo-colonials sitting squarely on every inch of postage stamp-sized lots.  New England, Connecticut in particular, simply wasn't for me, I would lament to anyone who would listen.  More importantly, I was not New England.  Yet, after every adventure, from a move to North Carolina for school, a stint in Europe, and living abroad in Costa Rica and Palau, I migrate back to the same habitat, much like the turtles that enraptured me before. 

There is something about fall that moves me.  Whether it's the fact that the metamorphosis is a metaphor for the changes inevitably occuring in my life each year, or the august beauty of the colors of fall, changing and deepening with every day, every rain.  The vast hues of gray that color the sky, gentle and hushed, serve as a muted forbearing of the silence of winter to come.  I've seen the sky from a few continents now, arching and bursting with different colors and streaks of light.   

Sage and I drove out to Westchester for a birthday party on Saturday, on windy New York back roads, stirring cyclones of fallen leaves, crimson and paper browns in our wake.  We gazed at the small, well kept store fronts of the main streets bisecting the towns, breathing in the charm and beauty of the gingerbread white icing and fresh black shutters.  We watched dusk fall softly over a ridge of trees, still bursting with the last vibrant leaves of fall, from a perch atop a straw bale, while our hands and faces burned hot from the fire.  With my hands wrapped around a cup of hot apple cider, I felt an ease wash over me, a blanket of familiarity that incited a calmness I couldn't achieve while I was gone. Thirteen years after our initial introduction, Sage and I were in the same spot we would be in high school - hands wrapped around cups, warming ourselves by an outdoor fire and flanked with friends.  Though our lives were completely different, so much of our existence was exactly the same.   

Sunday night I ate dinner with my grandmother, who doted on me, delivering meatloaf and asking me about my travels.  At night I lay in the bed that I've slept in at her house since I was a baby, and contemplated the soft swirls of spackle on the ceiling.  Around the world and back again, I am the same small girl who wanted to champion causes and see the world.  Instead of watching morning cartoons, I sat with my grandmother and had a cup of coffee while poring over the book review from the times. Years later I am now more interested in soaking up her wisdom and experiences than I was before, but my love for her remains the same.  And this morning, as my car pushed its way through the scenery, the rotation of the tires against the road evoking a soft rythmic undercurrent, I found myself smiling in earnest, truly impressed with the beauty and uniqueness that evaded me as an adolescent.  It occured to me on my ride home, that this is home. The same as when I left it, yet different, in a different way.  And I am different, yet still the same.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.