our childhood geography

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I was born at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. When we crossed into the U.S. a couple of weeks ago, the border agent looked at our passports. “Wow! One born in New York and one born in D.C.!” As we drove, his comment made me think about the geography of where we are born and what that does to us. 

We didn’t get snow tires this year because we didn’t want to drive on them for three months in North Carolina. So when we encountered lake-effect snow during the first couple hours of our drive, we were all on edge. K was uncharacteristically quiet, and I forced myself to take my feet off the dashboard in case of an accident. With Google Maps open on my phone, I mentioned every hotel we passed. “We can stop there,” I offered dozens of times. 

David was steady and cautious, and about an hour after sunset, we were finally south of the winter weather. We found an Airbnb available last minute, about 20 minutes north of Scranton — a haphazardly converted barn. David took the pullout sofa near the woodstove, and K and I slept on a bed in the loft. We knew we had 11 hours of driving the next day and wanted David as well-rested as possible. 

K and I slept terribly. But somehow, the memory is sweet. We faced each other, noses inches apart, her satin bonnet reflecting the little bit of light. It seemed like once an hour, we woke up, eyes wide. “We can’t wake daddy,” one of us would whisper. And try not to giggle. We heard a noise right by our heads during one of our first wakeups. I tried to ignore it, but it grew louder. A mouse (or another small animal) was right on the other side of the wood-planked wall, trying to dig its way to us. 

We shrugged and waited it out. The mouse never quit. And, then, finally, 5 am came, David woke up, and we were back on the road. 

When we reached the Blue Ridge Mountains, I noticed something in my body. My breathing deepened, and I sat heavier in my seat. “Isn’t this beautiful!” I said to K and David, every few minutes. And then, as we closed in on DC, and the architecture turned Federal and Georgian, I felt almost proud. Like, this city was me. 

K was totally game to reminisce about childhood near DC. “Tell me if you see your house!” she demanded as we sat in traffic on 495. And then, as we entered North Carolina, and the trees grew skinny and tall, and every exit had a Bojangles, I found a different part of myself awakening. I recalled destroying the clutch on a jacked-up jeep in my high school parking lot, going on a first date to a monster truck rally, and how my eighth-grade boyfriend won a prize at the state fair for his chickens. 

But it wasn’t just events; it was the actual trees and grass and light that felt like mine. 

When we lived in California, the landscape terrified me. I constantly tried to explain it, but it never seemed to resonate. The cliffs are too tall and jagged; they seem carelessly constructed. Driving inland, all I see is thirst. And then, as you approach Tahoe, the oversized trees are menacing. No wonder people were forced to eat each other there. In the same way that I am illogically proud of DC, I am terrified of the very nature of California. 

Ontario, so far, is an uncanny valley version of home. It’s not harsh like California but it’s not mine. 

Ever since the drive, I’ve been thinking about my friends and other people I love and how they formed in and around the landscapes of their childhoods. Take my friends who grew up in Southern California; what did that dryness and open views do to their hearts? When we talk about our lives now, is there a chasm that I don’t even notice, formed by the difference between the density of east coast vegetation and west coast light? What about David? Do his thoughts still grow between the tall buildings of the first three decades of his life?

And this baby, whenever he comes. His earliest days will be shaped by the mild North Carolina winter and the sound of cicadas. He will, in his very first year, have two springs. He will see the crocuses here and then, in a few months, the daffodils in Ontario. 

May he always carry that magic inside himself.