One of my best friends and I turn this idea over and over in our minds meticulously. Pulling apart each syllable, unstringing the knots of connotation.
What does it mean to settle?
Settle.
I call her on a lazy Sunday late morning, cuddled in bed beneath the snow leopard blanket my parents shipped up to me from Maryland. Leaning against the foot-thick window frame, the hot bright yolk of the sun caresses my thirsty eyes—a measured grace, before it again pulls the cover of the sea over itself to sleep for almost 20 hours.
She’s in sunny San Diego, sitting in the shade with children running around, asking her to take them to the park.
Snowflakes drift lazily, cling to the glass. A raven the size of a small dog balances its weight on the roof of our neighbor’s house. We banter back and forth through the cell towers—sharing the immensely divergent, yet correspondent, emotions and musings that have sprung from our years of service thus far. Hers with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps; mine here at our sub-Arctic radio station.
I used to wonder if I would ever, could ever, settle. Settle down, that is, and stop wandering. But this—my first Thanksgiving without my family and close friends—has got me thinking. How much I miss the smell of my house, my dad’s jokes, my mom’s unrivaled stuffing, the way my aunts and uncles tell stories, sharing memories with my grandparents, watching my cousins grow up. Getting chicken fingers with my best friends at 2 o’clock in the morning just because it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and if someone’s making chicken fingers then for gosh sakes, of course we’re eating them. Missing, beyond words, my grandma, with another set of holidays to recall her absence.
But all the holes, all those empty patches that feel fresh and raw and unable to fill are valleys in the snowcapped mountains of Now. Now, as the five of us begin a few of our own traditions. With new friends who might not know all the episodes of our pasts, but whom we have chanced to meet and began to love. Inviting in, amid the holes, a few spots of fertile ground—and I promise you that so much grows here.
We’re swapping recipes and turkey brining tips mid-news meeting, remembering the first Thanksgiving meal we cooked while standing around the ever-full station coffee pot—running out into the new snow to grab a quick interview, blasting that same mix CD in the truck that we’re now able to drive comfortably in at least two of the six settings of four-wheel drive. Hoping everyone can fit around the table. And I’m thinking of all the tables around which will sit all the people I love: here, near, north, south, internationally, in memory.
So when I talk to my friend, I tell her that it’s crazy how gorgeous the sun is for just the few hours it’s up. That the aurora borealis is better than the pictures. That you’ve never felt warmth like the hands of an elder holding yours, telling you about her childhood. That talks of “climate change” come in the form of: when I was young, it didn’t rain in November and it didn’t take so long for the sea to freeze. That I’m wearing long skirts again, and my roommates and I have seen each other cry (and laugh, and lose our minds, and find ourselves piece by piece amid storms and confusion). That life here is starting to feel routine, in that charming, lazy weekend morning way. That, like a deliciously sticky cobweb, I’ve walked into something I can’t seem to walk myself out of and I’m letting it stick.
Somewhere in the gene pool, I inherited an intense wanderlust. I like change, a little bit of pressure, challenges and unfamiliar territory. I get scared of being stuck anywhere and thrive in situations that are new and intense. But every once in a while my heart gets stuck and I remember that with each new community, home gets bigger. With each sadness in leaving is joy in arriving. And perhaps, eventually, something permanent that winds its way through the beautiful inconsistencies.
I don’t know if we settle. We stumble and wander and sprint and sometimes free fall and often we land gently on ground just strong enough to hold us. Each pause immeasurable. And nothing else really matters more than where we are and who we’re with in those moments.
