Homing In

by Zinta Aistars

Studio Grill

Loving the place you’re in has nothing to do with loving the place you’re not. If all my life I have been rattling around trying to find Home, it finally seems to be coming to rest in me—I am home in many places. 

Not perfect. Not quite what I had in mind. But I know how to make myself at home in most any place for at least a while—in the United States, in Europe, in any of the four directions of the wind, country or city. I like that about myself. I know how to make do. I also know how to live in the lap of luxury (hey, that’s easy), but I can just as well cope with having next to nothing, and those have been far from my unhappiest times. Indeed, quite the opposite. I like the simplified.

Raised bilingual and bi-cultural by immigrant parents who did their stint as make-do refugees, that seems to be a skill I’ve inherited. Turn my roots up into thin air and I can still find something to cling to long enough to wrap around a root or two.

Yeah, I like that. It’s a good skill, or trait, to have. The downside, however, is having a lot of shallow roots in a lot of places, and always missing the place I’m not. And, not least, missing that place where I might be at perfect peace. In place. Truly Home. A place to combine all things loved. 

At least I have the direction for that: it’s north.

Kalamazoo Mall

On this weekend, work week concluded, I head south. I shrug, thinking my compass is off, but I could always take the other way around the globe, right? Go north so far that I eventually would be heading south so far that I would eventually be heading north again? Well, anyway, a bit too impatient and the weekend too short for globe treks, I head south from a bit outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I have been “house sitting” for a traveling friend, to Kalamazoo, where I have held an address longer than I have managed anywhere else. 

Time does its thing. 

I wasn’t born here, but I grew up here, and when I left, just barely out of my teens and a too-young bride, I swore to never come back. Never say never, you know. Took a long time, several decades, in fact, and some pretty strange adventures, and even a stint overseas, but eventually … here I am again. In Kalamazoo, that oddly named town that roots back to a Native American name meaning “boiling water.” Kind of applies. Steaming and bubbling, it was hard for me to stay in place. When all that bubbling and boiling calmed down, here I was, back again.

I pack my car with most of my things, leaving just enough for a one-night stay in the coming week at the country house of my friend. For the weekend, I am feeling the pull south. Except for a short stop two weeks ago, I have been gone for three. I am a tad surprised at just how homesick I suddenly feel.

Three deer lope by as I close the trunk of my car. I stand in the snow and watch them. Deer have greeted me most every day of my stay here. Sometimes only one, sometimes in herds. They leave in leaps now, one, two, three, and they are soundless in the wintry evening. I smile and nod at them, sending out a blessing as they have been to me. They made me feel at home here. 

I scoop up my cat Jig, who yowls once in question, but then settles in as we pull out of the drive and out and away from the country, back to the Interstate. She settles into my lap, now and then pushing her head up to the see out the window and watch the passing blur. I wonder what she is thinking. Does she know?

An hour and we are there. To my Kalamazoo home. My son greets me as I pull in, his face suspiciously stricken. The water pipe has busted. Water is leaking in to the basement, and his friend Ron is already here, soldering and flaming and steaming, patching the pipe. 

“Didn’t want to tell you,” my boy shrugs, wincing. “Save the plumber. Ron’ll get it done.”

I trust so. Ron is one of those who knows how to do a little bit of everything and a lot of a few things. Handy. Buy him a pizza and he’s a happy worker. 

Bronson Park, Kalamazoo

I’m not going to worry. I’m home, and it feels good, and I let old Jig loose, and my old chow pup, Guinnez, comes racing toward me. I drop to my knees to nuzzle the pooch. My face gets licked and my hands get licked, and he gets a good rub down and more than a few giggly squeezes. Guinnie Pig! I squeal, and we enjoy our love fest. This is how home feels.

This is how home feels: imperfect but perfect. Leaky but good. I’m a little surprised by how good. Steadily, but little by little over the past few years, I’ve been discovering just how rooted I am here. Even as I have roots elsewhere, and feel the echo of Home in my heart in several places. And a call north to claim another.

Nothing rattles me, not even a string of cuss words from the vicinity of leaky pipes as the soldering doesn’t hold. The last few weeks have been some down, some up again, and I have resolved to keep the faith that the up will always come after the down. If I’d nearly lost my northern dream some weeks ago, a hundred things seem to have fallen into place since—including a wonderful job, offered and accepted, for my daughter in Chicago. After more than a year of hard searching and innovative door knocking and temping and learning and being flexible, her drought has ended. She has a good position with a good organization that is, by golly, the perfect combination of her social work ethics and her sales experience. 

I can breathe easy again. I helped her stay above water for that year, but now that my own pipes are leaking, I know she can paddle her own ocean again, while I paddle mine. We are back on the path, each to our own dreams. Congratulations, sweet smart Blondie!

Ron works into late hours, the leak patched then not, and finally ends up falling asleep on my basement couch. I silently roll my eyes… yup, I’m home. Always sumthin. 

Downtown Kalamazoo

Saturday morning shines up new and I’m still keeping the attitude. I leave the two young men to steam over the pipe repairs, while I head into town to run my own errands. There are places I want to stop, faces I wouldn’t mind seeing. Maybe just a walk through town. 

I drop my car off at my favorite mechanic’s, where I have been going for … some nearly 20 years? Both Brian and I now have more than a smattering of gray hairs. 

“Hey, Zinta!”

I nod and grin and fiddle with my car keys, taking off the one he’ll need. I am here for new tires. 

“Hey you.”

“Four?”

“Two. You let me know if I need the front ones, but I don’t think so. The back two are vibrating enough to make me jiggly in the head when I get out. Then again, maybe that’s just a sign of age.”

Brian grins, scoops up my keys, tells me couple hours, and I’m off. Center of town isn’t far from here, and just a couple blocks in and around, and I am at my favorite breakfast place, Studio Grill, side by side with my favorite downtown book store, Michigan News Agency. 

I am greeted as soon as I walk into Studio Grill, the cook and owner coming out of the kitchen to pour me a hot cuppa and asking me how’s it been, Z. It’s that kind of place. The eggs are from local farms, the coffee is from a Kalamazoo place, the veggies are organically grown, and the art on the walls is by a local artist. 

I take my favorite spot by the window, sip the coffee—oh yeah—and lean back in my chair to start reading a new book: Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon. She’s just won the National Book Award, a professor down the street at Western Michigan University. We keep doing that here in Kalamazoo. We keep producing those award-winning authors—Bonnie Jo Campbell, David Small, now Jaimy Gordon. 

Something in that boiling water, Kalamazoo folk joke, but there really does seem to be something in this town. Not so very big, but we are rich in creative arts and quick on the movement to good, new ideas. I’d just read a few days ago in the newspaper that we had the lowest foreclosure rate in Michigan, the strongest employment rate … we are hanging in there during these tough times. Our new governor had recently pointed us out as the example to follow. 

Michigan News Agency

I was feeling the pride. Eating my eggs, sipping my coffee, reading my book, I was feeling my place here.

After breakfast, had to drop by next door. Dean, owner extraordinaire of Michigan News Agency, was all smiles the moment she saw me. “Zinta, hello!” and she brought me to the back of the store, down those endlessly long aisles of books, books, and magazines, to show me the new spot for local authors’ readings. I liked it. A good spot. I would try to come by for the upcoming reading by a local poet.

Then to the library. Past Bronson Park, to the Kalamazoo Public Library, where I had a score to settle. I was sure I’d returned that book, months ago, before my last trip overseas. One of several. But I’d talked to librarians on the phone, all kind, all checking the shelf, no book, and I was giving up the wait for it to show up. Let’s get it paid and my card clear. 

The librarian at the circulation desk checked my record. 

“Shall we check the shelf one more time before you pay?” she asked. 

Sure, I nodded. One more time. 

Kalamazoo Public Library

And there it was. She came back with book in hand, checked it in, erased my fine, and then took a closer look at my name. Zinta … she murmured. 

“There’s got to be only one such name,” she said. “You know, you and I, we worked at the same place. Long time ago, office furniture. You were up in sales and I was in the mail room.”

“Oh my gosh,” I breathed. “That was so long ago! Twenty years maybe?”

We laughed, shook our graying heads at memories, not all of them good, but I was some $30 lighter on fines, so happy as a clam as I left the library and walked through downtown. Dan waved from South Street Cigars as I walked by. And there was Jerry’s jewelry store, another good friend in my life. 

Kalamazoo Mall

Town was quiet, snow falling, a few flakes and gently. I walked the main street, bricked and lined with trees, now bare-limbed and white with snow-lace. Past the museum and back to the mechanic. Brian waved as I walked in, my car was already parked out front and ready. 

“What did I quote you on those tires?”

“I’m not saying,” I grinned. “What are you quoting me now?”

“$325?”

“Heck, no! You said $250.”

“Must’ve been having a good day,” Brian mock grumbled, and ran the bill for $250. 

Another errand, and I drove to the veterinarian to pick up a new dog license for Guinnez. Soon as I walked in, staff smiled and called out, “Hi, Guinnez’s mom!”

I chortled. It occurred to me then … everywhere I’d gone today, people knew me. Everywhere I went, people knew my name. Here, they knew my old chow pup. And when I made my grocery store stop just after, the owner, Linda Sawall, came over to talk organic yogurt with me. We shook hands and arranged for an interview—I would be coming by soon to sit down and hear her story, because I was working on a freelance article about her family grocery store and how it was helping local food growers, local bakers and coffee brewers, local gardeners and locals who wanted to eat all that local produce. Like me. From now on, she and I would know each other by name. 

When I got home, my son jogged out to help me bring in the groceries. I gave him a hug, and then another.

“What’s that for?” he eyed me. 

“Just because. Good to be home.”

   

Day 17: Random Acts of Sunshine

by Zinta Aistars

A sunrise never gets old. It just turns into another sunset. Every morning as I get up to start my day at this country house that I am “sitting,” I watch the dark windows turn a pale and wintry blue. Sometimes, I catch many color variations between. On Sunday morning, I was dazzled by the light show, threw a coat over my flannels, slipped from slippers into boots, and raced outside with camera in hand to catch the sun coming up through the line of trees at the front of the house. Lavender, orange, red, blue and gold.

I have seen so many sunrises in my half century plus of life. So many sunsets. Why is it that such things stun us with their bright beauty each and every time as if we’d never seen them before? On work days, I miss some of the light show, busy with work day bustle, but every morning that I’ve been at this house in the country, 17 of them now, I find my hurried step slowing on my way from house to red barn, where my car is parked. It can’t be helped. There is a light in my eyes.

Light, and sounds of twittering birds and cooing creatures, and a freshness in the air that fills my lungs and wakes me in a way that the coffee mug cannot. Seventeen times, I have come to a standstill between house and barn. And stood. Just stood. Looking. Listening. Breathing. Forgetting time.

Smiling. Touched by random sunshine.

We tire of our chores, we tire of our work, we tire of our favorites, we tire of our lovers, we tire of whatever we see day after day after day. Why does this never wear out? This—a new day, fresh, sparkling, sweet. This—the call of nature. I have never tired of this, and I have never gotten my fill.

This day was to be my last full day at this country house. David, however, has written that he needs more time. Pulling together loose ends, tying up this and that, arranging the business of his life. He won’t be back home yet for a few more days, and I have been gifted with a few more sunrises here, a few more sunsets. I am not complaining.

Just a little over a week ago, I was quite devastated at what appeared to be the loss of my northern dream. But I stand now, between house and barn, work portfolio hanging loose from my hand, looking, listening, breathing, and feel a surge of new hope. So many odd and wonderful things have happened in the past week or so. So many unexpected puzzle pieces falling into place. Several surprises, appearing without warning. To sweeten it all, a few random acts of kindness.

We tell our children to fear strangers. Dare I confess that strangers in my life have so often been the bearers of unexpected kindness? I felt my world shift a little on its axis a few days after I had felt it shift me away from where I wanted to be. It seemed the last straw, straw that was woven into a nest for my nest egg with many other such straws, when my daughter’s car broke down with a huff and a puff, not to move again. It seemed the last straw after a year of burning up straws.

After being told to never trust strangers, aren’t we always told to never trust a mechanic? Especially a mechanic who is a stranger? My wallet open and ready to be emptied, my daughter went to pick up her car from the mechanic, extensive work done. The mechanic, an elderly man, had shared with her that he, like her grandparents, was an immigrant to this country. His auto shop was his ticket to his independence here. He made a good living and worked hard. He saw her anguish. He cut the bill in half. Pay me for the parts, he said, and my labor is my gift to you.

My daughter gasped. She called me with the news and I gasped, too. Why would a stranger be so kind? He had worked on the car all day long.

My world shifted on its axis again. I had given up. Silly me. I had forgotten that sometimes there is magic in this world. A daily, ordinary kind of magic that comes to us quietly and when we least expect it. Those shifts we do not see coming, unexpected surprises, and a kindness extended for no reason at all. Sometimes strangers turn out to be good people. They help us find our way home again.

I put one straw back and let it be the first straw of a new nest for a new nest egg.

One should never give up hope. A dream held so dear, so close to the heart, should never be lost. Impossible things become possible and fairy tales sometimes come true and princes sometimes have grease beneath their nails and wear oily overalls.

It was first of several such lessons over the past 17 days. The lessons were piling up like straws.

I stand between house and barn and observe, again, that the sun just keeps rising. After every sunset, no matter how dark, it keeps coming up again.

My number crunching still doesn’t make solid sense. I’m still reaching. Really reaching. And I am going to need a few more miracles, a dash of magic, a sprinkling of wonder, and when I get lost in the woods, a kind stranger to point me back to my path.

I’m pretty sure everything happens for a reason. Everything brings us a lesson. Including the way the golden light reaches across this yard, stretches, expands across the white snow so far between the tall, dark silhouettes of the bare trees.

I still don’t know how it will happen—my northern dream. I’m just sure again that it will. I am trusting in the light. I will keep faith in kindness. I will watch for the unexpected and how it gives shape to hope where it was nearly lost.

.

Day 14: Winter Walks and the Wild

by Zinta Aistars

Snow swirls from the skies and the temperature drops to some chill single digit, but I am eager to be outside in it. I bundle up, two layers of most everything, and twirl a woolen scarf around my neck in circles upon circles, push my woolen-socked feet into boots, pull on knit mittens, and out I go to catch snowflakes.

Back in suburbia, I might be inclined to stay inside, warm and coddled, but here, in open country in middle Michigan, I crave the outdoors. I crave a little something of the wild. At the opening edge of my third week here, I have seen herds of deer most every day, as many as 22 at a time, as few as one, white tail flicking as she pushed her nose into snow for a bite of something that remembers summer. 

The deer are silent this morning, and gone. As I trek back into the snowy fields behind the barn, out toward the wooded tree line, I see only their delicate prints in the snow. But I feel them. I sense them near, perhaps even watching me. 

What is this craving we humans have for the wild? For the elements in their most basic form—earth, air, water, fire? In my days and nights here in this country house, I have connected with all of these, and each time I do, I sense something in my very core realigning and falling into place. Suddenly, I will sense a deep calm. All is right again, with me and with the world. Harmony.

I have been reading a book called Island Farm while living here, by Arthur Versluis, a neighbor, in fact. He keeps striking chords with me and with this country experience—and with this craving for the wild, too. Versluis has found the exact words to describe our connection to the wild when we encounter deer:

“Here on the farm you’ll see them sometimes at dusk or at dawn, silent, poised, round tan bodies on delicate legs, heads turned toward you, brown eyes gazing. They are like spirits floating over sharp hooves, ghostlike in the morning mist or twilight. If you freeze, they might turn, walk on their way, but more often they’ll bolt, and like gazelles, bound among the trees and disappear from view. One might pause, though, and look back at you, just to see what you’re doing, and perhaps your eyes will meet, in that moment some mysterious communication taking place. That’s the point at which worlds join, natural and human, over the tall brown grass ..."

Versluis goes on to say:

“Machinery and convenience are too often mistaken for civilization nowadays, but in fact civilization can be measured only by whether we live in harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine.”

Nailed it, I think, tapping my finger on the page. The reason why so many of us are in discord with ourselves and others, with our world, and why we seem to be in constant struggle against a creeping unhappiness, is this disconnect. We live in deep isolation—from each other, from our communities, from the natural world around us. Our eyes meet with the eyes of a wild one, and for an instant in time, we feel the connection we have been missing all along. An electric current of momentary harmony with the natural world that birthed us and cradles us still, whether we realize it or not.

It jibes with the Woodswoman series I recently read, the four-book memoir by Anne LaBastille, who lived in a cabin in the wilderness for her entire adulthood. She would sometimes take on teaching jobs at colleges and universities to teach about nature writing and ecology. When a college administrator pulled her aside to warn her of the dangers of taking her students on a camping trip for one night, she sensed a fear of nature among those who live apart from it. Whereas these same students routinely wander city streets, it was a walk in the woods the college administrator feared most when considering their safety. She was expected to teach nature writing while keeping students away from nature.

When did we become so afraid of a walk in the woods? In essence, isn’t this really a fear of the wild in ourselves?

I tromp through the snow, and immediately I feel that surge of joy come up in me. What is it that causes this joy? It is the joy of a reunion with a part of our own selves that has been, nearly, lost to us. It is the cold, fresh air on my face, bringing a flush of health to my cheeks. It is the resonance of my step against the earth. My blood beats with the pulse of the earth beneath and around me. I stand in the middle of the snowy field, surrounded by woods, and open my arms to the sky spilling white like a cool blessing upon me. 

All morning, I walk. Through the field, along the edge of it, and I step into the woods, following the delicate tracks of the invisible deer. I come across a great old tree, a time-worn giant, and feel reverence. I press a mittened hand against its thick trunk, but that won’t do. I take my mitten off and touch that ropey bark, those thick grooves and its rough exterior, worn by many, many years of sun, rain, snow, wind. The tree has been here much longer than I, and I can only hope that it will be here long after I am gone. 

I open my eyes to the beauty of winter—the bare limbs of trees, dried grasses, a denuded world that hides nothing. This is what we build upon. Here is our own white-washed skeleton. Beneath the snow, the earth rests and contemplates her rebirth, yet months away. She is storing up her energies. 

I feel my own energy surging. There is much I wish to do yet on this weekend—read, paint, write. But this is what I had to do first, and what I will need again, whenever my spirit tires. Here is my source. And yes, it is wild. Beyond that edge of the field, deeper into the wood, and beyond, and beyond still, the wild that holds within it life as well as death. This chill, too, after all, could kill, and we must respect it, understand its rules and align our own. Therein is the harmony of our contentment. Not when we tame the natural world, but when we connect to the wild within it, and sense our own, the core of creativity, the voice that howls at the moon, the passion that sustains us and keeps us from drowning in mediocrity. 

We, too, are wild, or once were. When we remember this, when we touch that bounding pulse, we believe again. 

.