I dream about the mountains the way most people dream about the ocean. I went last year for the first time it was my first time seeing a mountain that wasn’t a land hill. I remember everything about North Carolina and how it was one of the first times I ever fell in love with a place, how I discovered that I love places more than I ever loved people. I am someone who’s dream has always been to travel the world. Being the child of immigrants, this presented an issue growing up because immigrants have spent their whole life traveling, looking for this elusive concept known as home. And once my parents found it, here in Miami, they’ve never wanted to venture beyond their own backyard. I’ve never been much of anywhere until last year. I had only been to New York, and to Inner city Philly where I volunteered during spring break one year despite my parents wishes. I leave a little piece of myself everywhere I go and I find a little piece of myself everywhere I go. Before Philly, I didn’t think I wanted to be a mom or married. I always had this notion that I would just be this tumbleweed gypsy moving from place to place with a job that lets me travel. I would be a rootless tree and I’d be very very happy living out of a suitcase, going to different countries learning to live as the natives do. But in Philly, something in me changed. By a seeming accident, I was given the topic of Inner city education. which at the time was very random because I was still studying Psychology. But working with those kids for ten days, it changed my life. I never thought I was someone who would be good with babies. They’re so fragile and little and at the time I was so so dark. I just felt mothers should be soft and light and just all the things I wasn’t. But this little baby girl just attached herself to me. Every time I put her down she would cry and when I would pick her up she would stop. She would look at me and smile at me like she saw something in me. Something good. Something I didn’t see. And I knew even if I never married, that someday I wanted to be a mother, even if I had to adopt. This little baby who I never saw again, taught me that. In Philly I found maternity.
The next place I traveled to was the perfect place for an insomniac like me- the city that never sleeps. Something few people know about me is that since I was a child, I have always been afraid of the dark so it was agreeable symmetry that I fell in love with a city that is a nightlight that never goes out. In New York, I found a home. NY isn’t for everybody. And even though I’m someone who loves open space and land and that’s something I would want later in life in my youth I’m someone who could be very happy living in New York. I like the roughness of the people how they’re like sandpaper. I like that it reminds me of Gotham and how there’s something raw about every single person who lives there. A rawness and a depth that is non existent in Miami. In the superfluous eb and flow of people who only focus on making their exterior perfect, the interior is hollow. But New York wears it’s heart on its sleeve. In the muck of pollution and noise there is a heartbeat so palpable that it vibrated through the very essence of my being. New York, the city itself is just fucking alive. A bleeding heart. New York understands me. In New York I found understanding.
And finally, there is North Carolina. Everything about it, is different than anything I had ever seen before. The air smelled different, the men, the people all looked different. I had never seen people that looked like that. They say Miami is a melting pot, but it’s really not. What Miami is, is a small town masquerading as a metropolis. But this isn’t diversity, this is little Cuba. Almost everyone here is hispanic much in the same way that almost everyone in the midwest is american. And people of certain cultures have certain looks to them. Like how most hispanic men tend to be shorter or brown haired and brown eyed. and hispanic women tend to be petite and curvy. The men in the mountains are HUGE. And they all have beards. The women are huge with beards too. (lol no not really.) They’re actually really blonde and beautiful or really butchy and don’t give a fuck about life. But the thing about the mountains is you come face to face with your soul. All there is is life around you. Trees and animals and snow. Everything in the mountains is alive. The air is crisp and clear, I have NO allergies up there and there’s streams and caves. The cold feels like christmas on your face. My description falls short because even though I found my maternal instincts in Philly, and understanding in New York, in the mountains I found myself. my soul. I found God.
I felt so minuscule being surrounded by the magnitude of the mountains. And I contemplated the brevity of human life and how so many things we give importance to are really so trivial. We stayed so deep in the mountains that the nearest walmart is an hour away. And the horses. Oh my god. The horses. I’ve loved horses since I was a little girl. One of my fondest memories with my grandfathers both involve horses. And my parents never let me take lessons because superman fell off a damn horse and got paralyzed so.. yeah that makes sense. But in the mountains I finally got to ride them. Mine was retarded though it was a half donkey half horse named Bozo who didn’t want to listen to me. But still. It wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t some comedic relief in there. When I close my eyes I still see the mountains. I still see that house made of wood and windows and snow. I miss it more than almost anything else in my life. Seeing mountains for the first time was like seeing a new color. Can you imagine that? A new color not red or blue or purple. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just meant to still be that gypsy who doesn’t belong to anyone or anything.
There will always be something in me that craves freedom more than I fear loneliness.
mmool 