Back to California, I would have never believed that I would have lived longer in France, than I ever lived in the States—which still feels odd, even now. But California I call home. That’s just what it is.
I’m going back to the house I lived in from the time I was five until I was eighteen. The familiar wonders of it all still live in me: my mom in the kitchen arranging flowers, baking cookies, her home always so lovingly cared for. Not fancy, but warm, welcoming, full of intention. A place where everything had its place, where the atmosphere was created from love, and my mom’s way of putting things together to make your eyes dance around the room to a tune of delight.
It’s a home where you can kick off your shoes, dance in the kitchen, play cards at the table, and leave the door open because someone is always coming in or out. With plenty of cousins, how could it be any other way?
And that’s what I love. My brothers, my nieces and nephews, my extended family and friends that are family too, noise and joy of it all—right there in the middle of the rice fields, with a canal running alongside. The smells, the sounds, the light… it’s all wrapped up inside me, deeply, indelibly. It’s part of who I am.
I’m going home.
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