I wrote this short piece a little over a year ago while preparing for our latest move to New England, just shy of 1,000 miles from where I grew up in Appalachia and even farther from our then-home in Tennessee.
Inspired by Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, I was challenged to consider what it means to leave the place where you were raised and what it means to stay. Over this last year, I’ve learned deeply what it is to care for and what home really is.
“I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.”
Everyday Use, Alice Walker
We pulled into the driveway, its surface cracked and crumbling, a relic of asphalt laid decades ago. Weeds pushed through the fissures, stubborn and unwelcome. To my right, the house came into view — a modest one-level structure with white paneling across the front, brick to the side marking an old expansion, and a wraparound deck in the back opening up to the forest. Likely built by a friend or family member. But what was the difference?
An old maple tree stood before it, partially obscuring my view. It couldn’t be mistaken for humble. Grand and majestic, its branches stretched wide, heavy with green leaves and thick with sap. Sap that oozed and sealed wounds. In autumn, the leaves would blaze a bright golden and drop to the tough ground below, only to return in spring, verdant and flourishing. As a child, I was proud of that tree. I would invite classmates over, eager to show them its towering presence. We would stomp and gallop beneath it, tossing leaves into the air or climbing its branches.
A squeeze of my hand pulled me back. I turned to my partner in the driver’s seat.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice deep and steady. But we both knew the truth. I was caught between deeply ready and wildly unprepared for what lay ahead.
I had left home over fifteen years ago, urged by everyone around me.
“You’ve gotta leave,” my mother said with quiet certainty.
“There’s nothing for you here,” my father declared with both frustration and bitterness.
Even my grandmother encouraged me to go, to find myself. And so I did. I owed it to them. I owed it to myself. I prayed about it. I whispered it like a hymn before bed. When I left, it was only an hour away, but it felt like a world apart. Something new, something wholly my own.
Years later, with another free spirit beside me, I found a new home. Where mourning doves cried and herons swooped. Where the water met the mountains, and freedom stretched wide. I returned again, only to tell them I was leaving; this time farther, this time for good.
My mother left the room sobbing.
She didn’t know then that I would have my own home, my own tree. I would tell them about it. How its leaves turn a vibrant amber before falling all at once at the season’s first whisper of frost.
Many years passed. The family grew smaller. Gatherings became fewer.
On one of my visits, as I was preparing to leave, my grandmother took my hand; her skin warm, wrinkled, familiar.
“Will you come back sometime?” she asked.
It was a simple question. Not hard, not really. But it felt insurmountable.
A “Yes, of course” caught in my throat. I couldn’t muster it, so I just nodded.
I wept when I left. For me, for her, for all of us.
And now, here I was again, staring at the house from the car. My fingers tightened around his, my knuckles white with uncertainty. I took a deep breath but didn’t release it, unsure if I might need the oxygen for later.
Then, my eyes found the maple tree. The one thing in this place that had never stopped growing. It had grown with my family. It had grown with me. Its sap still flowed. Its leaves still turned and fell, only to return each spring. Renewed, resilient, and full of life.
Such a beautiful piece, Sarah!