Home Visitation

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, the one that feels the most genuine of all, trumping Christmas, Flag Day, and even Birthday. I've been going home every other year since moving, alternating between visits in November one year and then December the next.

Going home for visits is an evolving experience, as every trip has a different quality. I really missed it the first few times, wondering why I ever left. That feeling slowly shifted to feeling displaced and floating between life in the Central Valley of CA. and the Middle of Nowhere, NM. Lately, I've truly felt like a visitor - that I can view the movement and pace and atmosphere of a place that will always be home, but just not where I have my life.

I had a nice visit with my drummer loverman of a friend, Nate, and we spoke about music and friendship. I remember great get-togethers at his place in Sacramento on 26th and J Street. He had an amazing attic with no heat or air conditioning where we'd rehearse with frozen fingers or drenched in humidity. We drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and talked about which gigs we couldn't secure in town.

He had an interesting experience recently, seeing a local show. Our little contingent always felt a bit on the fringes of the scene, for years and years. But at this show, he received acknowledging nods and had some sweet conversations. The mood felt right and he told me he realized how we all took care of one another and that he has been part of something for over a decade.

That's much of how I feel when I visit. When you're in the thick of it, there's this sensation of never feeling like pieces fit. Then perspective presents itself and you realize how everything did fit, in ways you couldn't see back in the day.

With this, I've driven the streets this visit seeing the trees turning color. Enormous piles of leaves on the ground that I now want to play in, but barely noticed when I was a resident. The morning air felt refreshing. I thought of songs written over years and understood why I wrote them, why recordings were good in some respects and shitty in other respects. But mostly, I thought of why things just couldn't be any other way, not back then as an awkward singer-songwriter feeling insecure at an open mic, and not now, as a 35 year old trying to find her way back to songwriting in the middle of the holidays, at the end of graduate school, and at the beginning of a new career.