Now that I'm back on the West Coast, I find myself talking a lot about Northampton - you know, the classic "home for break" question: so, how do you like it there? The answer has changed since my last trip home, because something has changed between me and my little New England town.
My displacement must have been wicked-away slowly, gradually - yet, it seemed as sudden as a closing window. I remember standing infront of a magnolia tree, when I looked around and wondered how did I get here? All of my resistance had faded and It felt like could finally see this place. I understood it. It felt like mine.
I wrote about this particular moment over on The Equals Record ...
"Philosophers call moments like that a “paradigm shift,” because it wasn’t just about a bird's beak for Darwin. Suddenly, it was about everything. He saw turtles and trumpet vines and all sorts of creatures—and he wondered how they had come to be there."
you can read the full essay here!
I couldn't go back to seeing Northampton the way I had before, as flat and far-away. Because that's the thing about paradigm shifts: once they happen, you live in the everything after.
(photos) on film with Leica CL | blossoms on Main St.
As someone who just moved last week from California to the East Coast, I am soaking up this post and putting it in my memory bank. I love it here, but it's not HOME. But it will be. Soon.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this.
i love this so so SO much
ReplyDeletewhen i read "wicked-away" i read it as "wicked," like "wicked awesome." i thought, "wow, she really HAS taken to new england! funny jargon and all!" :) xo.
ReplyDelete"...you live in the everything after" - I love that...
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