Won’t You Stay

Maybe its in our blood. Maybe in our DNA. I like to go but I also want to stay.

I was talking with a friend who is truly the anchor of her family. That tethered-to-you, rock solid object that you drop down into the deep when you want to stay in one place. To her family she is considered Headquarters. A place where you check in for orders, where you go for reinforcement, where command central is. We talked about this and tossed the idea around, looking at how a person in a place could be described as such. There was a comfort to it.

Many folks, with help from ancestry companies out there, have traced the lineage of where they came from. From, as in somewhere not here but there. I write as an American and we mostly tend to be “from” somewhere else. Dad’s family was from Texas and so my older sister just moved there. My younger has lived in New Mexico and now hails from Washington state. It is true to say they’re originally “from” Cali though they both plan to stay where they now are. Here I am, in the land of my birth, where I plan to remain. Oh sure, I’ve visited places that made me want to stay. I wanted to stay in England soooo badly. Ancestors were calling loudly through the voice of Phil Collins as his song, “One More Night,” played in the airport terminal. I about died. But I boarded the plane and went back to where I’m from.

We stay where we are when we feel that we belong. Some would disagree but I’m writing from my perspective, not from their rationale. We’ve got a stake in the ground and we’re here for the duration. Maybe we leave when we hear the long lost blood of our forbears calling us like a magnet pulling bits of iron ore to itself. The iron cannot withstand the pull of it. And so it is drawn towards that pull. We move “away from” as the strong magnet of family, opportunity, affordable lifestyle, or pure adventure pulls us “there.” All dat stuff and more.

Me, there is a powerful magnet underneath the sandy shifting soil of California. This is where I’m from. Here I’ll stay.