The author arriving at her first residence

1 / Fawnwood Lane
For a few years I am an only child. Beneath the tall pines the fire ants and feral cats and water moccasins and scorpions and ticks teach me how to survive. Maybe it sounds miserable but being a little feral is an asset, I’ve found. Plus there are donuts and a swimming pool next door. In the red barn live two horses, a Palomino named Sunny and a Paint named Scout. I like the stall where the hay is stored best, the soft golden bales a reminder of what has been and what could be. Sunny and Scout are soon joined by two goats, Barbie and Ken, who nibble heart-shaped ivy leaves from my outstretched palm and clamber over the obstacle course I help my parents build. On a violently stormy night in September my world tips on its axis. I am utterly devoted to my doe-eyed, ringleted brother who totters sweet and pure into every game I devise. Two days after my seventh birthday our duo becomes a trio; in the afternoons I rock my new baby sister to sleep and drink in her delicate face.

2 / Founders Way
My name precedes me: Carlotta, the other kids wonder, do you think she’s from Hawaii? In their minds I am regal with long black hair. They’re not expecting the scrawny new arrival with dirty blonde hair, all elbows and ears and cockeyed teeth. But then they fold me into their pack and I am fearless in the way only ten year olds can be; what I lack in size I make up for in cheek. I’ve never lived in a climate with four seasons before and the first time it snows I layer on three pairs of pants—nothing can keep me indoors. My friends and I think we own the woods. There is no grove of trees without a rickety, elaborately-named fort or a gully devoid of messages in code only we can understand. I become a big sister for the third time; it is perhaps the happiest time of my childhood.

3 / 8th Avenue
We arrive in the summer and the heat is oppressive. I am the new kid again but I still have enough spunk left in me to not mind. Sometimes I go to work with my dad. We only have one car so he and I bike the mile there; on our route there is a pool and I look at the blue water longingly. My bedroom is carved out of the attic, with dark green carpet and deep purple trim, and—best of all—an uneven staircase that banishes from any adult the thought of visitation. With a library card in one hand and an iPod in the other, I see no reason to ever come downstairs. Some months after we move in, a tiny malnourished kitten comes to create a home for herself and her fleas; we name her Patches for obvious reasons. Understandably, my mother schemes ways to make us love the cat a little less.

4 / 20th Street
Buried between listings for used cars and old wheelbarrows, my mom unearths the house from the depths of craigslist. The first time we walk in, the interior is camouflaged by shadows and a thick layer of shaggy green carpet cover the wood floors; it’s unclear if the kitchen has ever been functional during this century. My dad is skeptical but my mom and I see the charm lurking in the shadows. I learn how to strip wallpaper and scrape paint from windowpanes until the rooms are flooded with light, then I sit at my desk and will exciting things into existence. Eventually they come: first period, first job, first car, first kiss, first time leaving home. The days are long and mostly golden, but the confines of youth bore me. I'm so desperate to grow up I don’t think about what I might miss.

5 / Langata Road
I have a little apartment within the compound. I’ve decorated the pale blue walls with meager scraps to make it feel like home: postcards, quotes, a scarf. For the first time in my life I have my own bathroom and I’m thrilled every time I cross its threshold. I am on the other side of the world and unbearably homesick but don’t let myself admit it because I’m finally having An Adventure. It’s not until much later that I realize the dangers of not being honest with myself. Next door is a Somalian boys’ school and morning and evening the call to prayer mingles with the eucalyptus leaf smoke. A little further down the road is the compound filled with cool Norwegian families who impress me with their sophisticated homes and laidback parenting style; the moms pepper me with questions about my love life and I wish I was equipped with more interesting stories. Every day is 70 degrees and sunny and I spend the afternoons outside with the boys I nanny and watch the clouds morph, counting the minutes until bedtime. Then I miss them when they finally go to bed. When I return to my apartment at night, exhausted, the short walk is perfumed by the kumquat trees. I sleep deeply every night.

6 / County Road 219
It’s my first home with a lover, an old schoolhouse nestled in an orchard atop the mesa. The foundation is sloped, the windows are single-paned, and our main source of heat is from a wood-burning stove, but our love is tender enough to smooth over the cracks. Through the big windows at night we can see deer silhouetted by the moon, raccoons and foxes too. In the spare closet my wedding dress and his suit hang side by side. I stand in front of the mirror and practice my new last name, the syllables rolling around unfamiliarly on my tongue. I don’t know a soul in town and go hiking until my limbs are tan and strong, then learn how to make kombucha and sourdough while I wait for employment. Every moment holds both wonder and a question.

7 / 6th Street
We’re homeowners for the first time, and in a strange turn of events I don’t see the house in person until the movers arrive. It’s Christmas but everything is cold and unfamiliar and the first night I cry and cry. The next weekend we paint all the walls and I feel a little better. It’s a novelty to see a problem, then fix it without asking anyone’s permission. Spring comes; the sidewalk gardens bloom and I cut off all my hair. Life is busy until it’s not and lockdown makes me feel like crawling up the walls. I start to wonder where home is.

8 / Josephine Street
Still on the search for home, we pack up our things and put them in storage. We arrive in April, thinking we’ll only stay for a month or two. Only the essentials come with us: bicycles, a board game, my entire plant collection. A pungent combination of old fish sticks and someone else’s weed lodges itself in the hallways and sometimes wafts through our bathroom vent. Subsequently, I become addicted to burning incense. Still, it’s fun to live in the city. Most days, if it’s not too hot, I go down to the corner coffee shop to work on the patio and in the afternoon I lie very still on my bed reassembling the constant whoosh of passing cars into ocean waves. On the weekends we take long bicycle rides when the weather is nice and go to museums when it’s not. I get to know the dogs of the neighborhood and mark the passing of time with flowers: first lilacs and irises, then peonies, lilies, marigolds, dahlias. It feels like anything is possible.

9 / Now
I’ve told you all I know so far. It’s been a long way from the tall pines under which I was born and there is still a long way to go. There was a time—and sometimes I feel this longing even now—when the thing I wanted most was a root system thick and gnarled enough to withstand even the fiercest March winds. I wanted to stay in a place long enough to see the seasons shift again and shift again, to lean against a doorframe a party and casually toss out "I remember when”s. The fragility of life scared me and I wanted to wear that strong fibrous network like armor. But life happens the way it happens, and so I clutch close my collection of tender saplings, thanking them for all the ways they’ve taught me to live.

I want a life as full as a fat July tomato, its shiny taut flesh splitting when freed from the vine, spilling in syrupy rivulets down my arm. I want summer camp and tanned limbs and towheaded children that plunge fearlessly into the lake. I want to wear matching sweaters with my sisters.

I want blackberry stained fingers and long cricket-chirping nights and trees so tall I can’t see their tops. I want to know the name of every little flower that quivers in mountain meadows. I want cannonballs and dripping popsicles from the corner store and kids so tired at the end of the day they collapse in their spaghetti. 

I want a neighborhood packed with my siblings and grandparents down the road and family dinner every Sunday night. I want to love my husband fiercely. I want Saturday morning pancakes and a book with my name on the cover. 

I want shoulders to cry on and long walks and Christmas puppies with red bows around their necks. I want to hold things up to the light and consider them carefully. I want to drink wine barefoot in new grass and my prayers to sound like birdsong.

Maybe I am asking for too much. Maybe I am asking for too little.

I do not know how long the vine of my life is, or how much fruit it may bear.

I only want to leave the world with a garden picked clean.

Now is the time for tenderness, and by tenderness I mean that the world is so harsh that we must do what we can to combat it, in any way we can think of. It doesn’t have to be elaborate: there is camaraderie in compliments and solace in solidarity. Just this morning I was late in taking the garbage to the curb—I ran outside just as the truck was pulling away, and when he saw me frazzled in my pajamas the driver threw on his brakes and bounded up the driveway to help. A ten second interaction left a glow for the rest of the day.

And here is tenderness magnified: across the globe, there are reports of mothers gathering strangers’ children under their wings, soaring to safety again and again, and men who were formerly the enemy given hot tea and a phone call to their families upon surrendering. These are the acts that can stop a tank in its tracks. 

When I was seven or eight I did a school unit on meteorology, which culminated in an assignment to record the weather for a month: temperature, humidity, clouds, precipitation, barometric pressure, wind speeds. This type of methodical observation appealed to me. I liked bookending each day with an attempt to harness the mystery of nature. Morning and night for thirty days I would stand in various states of dress in the driveway, neck craned, and record my observations in a little notebook. In south Texas, it usually meant that the humidity was high and the clouds low. Then I would hurry inside and carefully transfer the data into a spreadsheet. If dawn had broken scarlet, I would add a prediction about the unruly weather that was sure to follow. If towering cumulonimbus clouds then appeared, I’d watch them morph with a jolt of satisfaction. For a long time after the assignment ended, I would identify the clouds to anyone who’d listen: cirrus, altocumulus, stratus. It was less about proving the breadth of my knowledge and more about unearthing a new kinship with the world. 

I still keep a ritual of tracking of the weather, though now I collect summaries rather than specifics, and geographically I cast a wider net than I did in third grade. In my weather app is a long list of all the places I love, or, more accurately, all the places in which the people I love live. I may not have the privilege of knowing the minutiae of their days, but at least I can ask if they’re prepared for the snow or, if they’re lucky, have packed sunblock in their bag. Sun, sky, moon, rain: sometimes it’s the only constant we have.

The other day I got a text from my sister in Michigan: “winter storm warning for Denver!” And the day after that, another from my mother-in-law in Texas: “how much snow did y’all get?” It occurs to me as I shovel icy crystals that my love is not in vain.