You must visit home because if you do not, you will not be there to hear your brother remember how you used to take your tea and your oats on the go when you were driving that old manual Jeep that would one day be his in high school. You will not then, as you take that corner on this very morning, remember, beaming with pride, how you did all that and somehow still snapped photos of the sunrise as you took that corner all those mornings ago, changing gears and steering and camera clicking clicking clicking and sipping and chewing and singing, too.

You must visit home because even if your mind does not, your body remembers the weight of the salty air. And the colors of the sky at daybreak. And it is healthy to know those things all over again.

You must visit home because that is where you left your skateboard.

And you must visit home because there, it is still warm enough to go barefoot. And there, your dirty feet feel exactly and precisely like childhood.

You must visit to see your Sethi, who will never get enough of you but

that does not mean you are not doing enough

and you must visit home to know this.

Outgrowing things and places and people is my one, true heartbreak. It is the one I know best. It is the only one of which I am certain. And maybe it is the kind that feels sort of kind of a little bit good.

And as for growing without outgrowing?

In this visiting moment, I believe it is impossible.

If you visit home for your role models to treat you like the adult you are becoming, know that you will get angry and know that you are allowed to get angry and know that they only know the younger you

And pause here

with the younger you

and apologize to her

profusely

for convincing her that she had to sit and be silent when she wanted to speak and to speak when she wanted to be silent. Or rather for not, until this visiting moment, listening when she begged screamed shouted kicked pleaded with you to let her choose, just this once.

Someone whose love and friendship I value more deeply than many others met me for a coffee

(visit home also for this reason)

on one of my last days and we talked about lies and truth and love and floating and paying attention and spending time and sunscreen and we also talked about advice and advisors. And it occurred to me how difficult it is to hear, straight from the mouth of those whose advice once was worth more to me than its weight in gold, guidance that does not resonate with any ounce of my being but actually leaves quite a bad taste in my mouth as I drive away perhaps for the very last time.

Because as much as you are a visitor here

everyone here is still here and has been here and remains and is making a life here

and that goes for everywhere maybe

and some of them are exactly where they prefer to be and some others are just here until they can afford, financially or spiritually or socially or however else, to go someplace new

and a white man in Fiji told me, very matter-of-fact like,

“We all make choices!”

and most of the people at home are not going to take the time to acknowledge all of the wonderful and extraordinary ways in which you have grown and are growing and if you visit home looking for those who never really even knew the younger you to validate your growth, you will most certainly be disappointed.

and if you visit home for the dermatologist or the dentist or the gynecologist appointment, you will most certainly be disappointed.

and if you have to pay The Man with your own hard-earned cash???????

forget it!!!!!!!!

xx

Until You Know Better

keep refusing hormonal birth control!

gather around a table instead of a television!

Great Artists Steal

Listen to “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann, based on a hypothetical commencement speech by Mary Schmich, published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997