There’s Nowhere Left to Go
There is no memory of my adult life when I wasn’t contemplating home. I’ve always been envious of the folks who are so clear about their belonging. Most of the kids I went to high school with in dirty Jersey have stayed there. Many of the folks I know now eventually found their way back to where they grew up, or are starkly against it and moved to the opposite side of the country or world. For me, I’ve never known what home is. We moved states when I was six years old, and at ten years old, we moved across the country. Once I went to college, out of state again, I kept going. I’d move apartments each year, and after college, it continued.
Right now, I’m staying on Maui. I can’t quite say I’m living here because I’ve only been here a month and a half, and am leaving in a couple of weeks. Before I came, though, I did pack up my house, decided that either way — whether it was to Maui or somewhere else — I was moving. I had grown tired of people asking me why I lived where I lived and hearing myself respond in a defeated tone, “I don’t really know, I guess it makes the most sense.” The most sense!? Is that what I’m going for these days? Now, if I zoom out, this seems like a typical story: Woman in her thirties seeks out her place of belonging. It’s a bit Eat, Pray, Love if I really think about it. This idea that there will finally be this epic arrival after searching for a lifetime. A place that my roots can’t help but drop, where I feel completely at home and know for certain I must commit the rest of my life to this place.
Consciously or unconsciously, this is what I’ve been reaching for. For a while, it was like that, a reach. Sometimes it was just moving apartments or houses, and sometimes it was moving across states or countries. Every time, it seemed to make sense. A better opportunity, more space, more comfortable. After a decade and a half of this migration pattern, though, the reflection on home is taking on a whole new tone.
For much of my life, as a privileged upper-middle class white woman, I have felt like I could go wherever I wanted to go. Of course, being a woman has some limitations, but with money and freedom, the world has been mostly my oyster.
But now, with climate crisis prevailing and war erupting, places that feel sustainable and safe as a home are becoming fewer, if not non-existent.
You see, the last place I lived was Santa Cruz, California. A beach city south of San Francisco. During the summer of 2020, a friend and I were traveling in the Pacific Northwest. As we began our descent south to get back home, we met town after town filled with smoke. With road closures, new fires erupting along the path, it took many more days than we had planned to finally get back home. I was relieved to finally arrive back by the ocean where, even though the air was still carcinogenic to breath in, I felt safe being by a body of water I could swim into, just in case the whole state lit on fire. When I arrived on Maui, I met many Californians who had relocated to Maui after those fires. And guess what, the fires came here, too.
The friend I travelled with that summer, left California shortly after our trip because of the fires. She was having a ton of health issues and felt she had to get out. She eventually ended up in Vermont — beautiful green Vermont filled with fresh water pools to swim in and fresh air, so quaint, so safe. After being there for less than a year, Vermont flooded. This happened for consecutive years. Then, for professional reasons, she and her partner relocated to Asheville, North Carolina. Not even a week after they moved, Asheville flooded and they had to evacuate.
After living in so many places, there are only two that have felt like home. And for many years, I was trapped in a loop yearning to go back to these places. The first, I no longer even know what to call. Growing up I knew it as Israel, and now, as my eyes open, I understand this name is not shared by many of its natives. IsraelPalestine used to be a place of belonging to me, the place I first experienced chosen family. I loved an Israeli man there and planned at one point to move there. And now? Now, this place that I once loved is an active war territory. As I continue to wake up to the reality and atrocities of the historical and living trauma of the people living on that land, I realize I can never inhabit it again. The second, an adorable small town at the base of the Sierra foothills, has a recorded temperature high at 111°F. It is dry and hot and surrounded by trees, and friends have been evacuated many times due to fires.
But wait, there’s more. On a chill snorkeling outting here on the island, two women from California let me know there was a tsunami warning happening around San Francisco. As I laid in the sun, these women were frantically calling their children to make sure they were safe. And then, a few days ago, my sister checked in to see if my sweetie was okay because apparently a literal tornado had just passed through the town he lives in just north of Santa Cruz. Turns out his best friend’s daughters were 100 yards from the tornado and survived.
I am no longer looking for home. I am now anxious to find safety. Is there anywhere left to go?
Thursday night, Terry Tempest Williams came to speak on Maui. At her talk she read her story about being in the Utah desert where they had five consecutive flash floods. She shared with us how she leaned against the new earthen canyon that had formed from the raging water in the morning after one of the floods, amazed to see the animal life that continued to collaborate and thrive. She stared at us and said:
This moment of reckoning is our moment of awakening.
And I began to understand. There is no escape route. There is nowhere left to reach. There is nowhere left to go. The shift towards home is one that anchors us in place. It asks us to stop in our tracks and extend care to that which surrounds us. And so I wrote this, as a way to finally come home:
It’s no longer the question:
Is it the beginning or the end?
The question is:
Who and what are you willing to serve?
You must see
That no matter if it’s floods, fires or quakes
There is no where left to go.
For so long
Ancestors fled for safety.
Fleeing isn’t a possibility anymore.
So I ask you:
In the midst of whatever is here or coming
Are you willing to take care?
To offer your hands to the land your feet stand upon
But will never belong to you.
To offer your familiarity and generosity to your neighbors
Who belong to the same destiny as you.
It is time now
To take your place in this world of change.
To remove the mask of delusion that promised you a root system in undisturbed ground.
To find the holy room amidst it all, because of it all.
To turn towards and care.
And so I ask you, too. Whether you’ve simply known where you belong for forever, or you’re still wondering about home: Are you willing to care?
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