Even now, after years of living away, returning home to California is a sensory embrace that warms part of my soul like nowhere and nothing else.  This is where my family lives, and this is where my roots took hold.

I grew up on a dairy farm in the central valley, and my brothers both raised their families here, while my sister and I headed up to the Pacific Northwest and beyond.   I've always found it curious that the two girls headed north.  My sister's love of horses and the high desert took her to Madras, Oregon, while my search for acting jobs took me up to Seattle, where the delay of Springtime warmth still bothers my California girl's understanding of seasons. 

There are hard losses rooted at home in California, and it was once a place that held grief so thick that my young heart couldn't comprehend it.  But time has softened and expanded grief, or it has for me.  I ride the ever present slow waves of grief, and am prepared for the sudden, sharp crashes that can steal my breath and send me spinning. 

At this moment, my past and predicted future are holding space for me in the in-between, this present. With awareness, I am living this moment as a gift and I'm grateful for it.  

In this place, my grandparents helped build a small farming community, and the sycamore tree that my grandmother planted from a seed still stands, more than 100 years old now, though now it shades the grounds of the high school instead of their small farm house.

In this place our dad farmed along side our mother who was also a full time RN, and they raised four stubborn, hard headed humans. 

Now there are two of us left. I can't prove that we're the hardest headed of the bunch, only we two are here and our sister and brother are not.  It's a difficult thing to lose parents, but a strange, mournful thing to lose a sibling.  The link to the shared childhood, gone.

I'm not mourning, but I am incredibly aware of this fragile moment in time. I think of all the seasons I have witnessed, and though I appreciate them all,  springtime blossoms lift my spirits as the earth wakes once again, and I marvel at the hope it awakens in me.

So, I watch the red tail hawks as they float above the almond trees while I pick up the pruned branches and stack them between the rows in my brother's orchard.  The buds are beginning to open, and in a week or two the trees will be alight with soft pink blossoms.  Welcome home.  Breathe.

Coming Home

Deep roots

Even now, after years of living away, returning home to California is a sensory embrace that warms part of my soul like nowhere and nothing else.  This is where my family lives, and this is where my roots took hold.



Coming Home

Deep roots

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Coming Home

Deep roots

This is an Exclusive Story for supporters of .css-13w9qce-Text{display:inline-block;color:var(--text-accent);}Frances Leah King

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Frances Leah King

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Insatiable

This is an Exclusive Story for supporters of Frances Leah King