MOORHEAD

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I was just trying to update my Instagram bio.

“Just moved back to the Fargo-MOORHEAD area.”

I didn’t intend for Moorhead to come out as MOORHEAD. I clicked back to MOORHEAD and tried typing it again, but before I could click the X that stops your phone’s autocorrect suggestion, it changed itself back. MOORHEAD.

And since I read into everything in my life, I started to wonder about MOORHEAD. When had I typed MOORHEAD instead of Moorhead? Why was it defaulting to this all-caps, seems-like-you’re-screaming version of my new city? Why did seeing MOORHEAD make me want to giggle but also burst into tears? It’s like my phone was trying to tell me, “Hello! Why yes, you are in MOORHEAD. Yes, not only in Minnesota, but MOORHEAD! MOORHEAD. You live nowhere else in the world but MOORHEAD.”

When seemingly insignificant things like this happen (again, I was just trying to update my Instagram bio with where I live and a few new emojis) and cause me to pause (I spent about 10 minutes staring at MOORHEAD, before I decided I should sit down and write something about it ), I often take them as signs to look more closely at something. To pay attention, to dig deeper, to search for meaning. I can take a sentence I overhear, or a 30-second conversation with a barista, or a photo of feet amongst leaves and make it into a reflection on my Enneagram type or love life or vocational life -- sometimes all of those, at the same time.

I took my iPhone’s autocorrected capitalization as an invitation. An invitation to think about the fact that I do, in fact, live in Moorhead. Not Portland, Oregon; a location that I chose, that shaped me, that became a defining part of my identity for five years. A location that became home and that, from the very beginning, a location I wanted to shout from the rooftops in capital letters. PORTLAND! I’m moving to PORTLAND! Even before jumping in a U-Haul without cruise control to make the 1500-mile drive, even before arriving at that first apartment, even before walking to the Starbucks down the street to upload that first blog post, I adopted an identity of Moving to Portland. It was part of my family’s Christmas letters to acquaintances. It was my Current City on Facebook. It was a place on a map that transformed into home, that transformed my life.

Now, I’m navigating a whole new set of life circumstances not in Portland. In July, I hopped in my car and drove across the country and now -- I’m living in Moorhead. It’s been a big-yet-calm shake-up over the last six months. And I haven’t written a thing about it, except maybe an Instagram post in August. A lot of life has happened in these six months and I’ve kept some of it at an arm’s length. My excuse has been because this transition is still happening. It’s not like you move to a place and then the adjustment and feelings and challenges are done the moment the last box is unpacked. The complicated mourning and the bittersweet celebrating don’t find their own places in a drawer as your kitchen knives do. The feelings of, “What the hell did I just do?!” don’t leave your heart at the same time you recycle your last cardboard box. A transition is ongoing and constant and very, very present. Even with all the goodness in it, navigating it can be overwhelming. And lonely.

I started this blog when I lived in Portland. I’ve been a scattered writer over the last four-ish years, letting other good things (friends and love and work and school) and not-as-good things (Netflix and depression and doubt and loneliness) get in the way of tending to this space. This space of writing, reflecting, sharing, repeating the process. And yet these posts, though rare, have made me feel more connected; to myself, to my own life, and to others, somehow. They’ve made me feel less alone in the navigation of difficult change and huge hurts, and in the celebration of small wonders and huge awe.

And so, here I am. And here’s a reintroduction of this little space on the Internet -- with a new look, a new location, a new-yet-same author.

I’m going to accept the little invitations that come my way to remember Portland, through texts and songs and middle-of-the-night memories, to think about Portland, to write the countless stories about the life I lived there. And I’m going to listen for the call to think about and reflect on and wrestle with my life now -- right here in MOORHEAD. Because these invitations are everywhere, if we want them to be -- even in our Instagram bios. They’re in conversations with strangers and friends, street signs and radio commercials, all that we see and hear and feel, if we open ourselves to them.

Here’s to accepting the invitations of our lives. Thanks for accompanying me as I open mine.

life update.

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I have moved a lot in my life. I counted once, before my last few moves in Portland. It was in the ‘teens when I took into account my shifts between residence halls and study abroad experiences in college (which I absolutely do). I’m used to moving and I’m actually quite good at it. The sorting and packing and schlepping things from one place to another, the unpacking and organizing and breaking down boxes. I know that moving always involves one 12-hour day when I make a 30-minutes-before-closing trip to Target to stock my kitchen with hot sauce and paper towels. I know that I need to make my bed almost right away after arriving in a new home; I know that it will take me three tries until I get my kitchen organized the way I like it; I know that I will, inevitably, forget to change my address for at least one credit card account. I know what to expect from a first night in a new home and in a new place; the way it doesn’t quite feel familiar and yet you know you’ve come home.

My last few moves have been mostly easy. Moves that coincided with a new job and a new rhythm for my day-to-day life -- bigger shifts than just changing my address and neighborhood. But for the last five years, there were things that remained the same during these moves. My community. My Life Wife. My city. I held tightly to what, and who, remained stable through these shifts, to what kept me grounded in the midst of change. To what keeps me grounded, still.

You can guess where these sentences are headed, yes? I’m moving. Not across town this time. Across states. To Fargo! Or, Moorhead, Minnesota, rather. I’ve accepted a position in Residence Life at Concordia College. At my alma mater.

And in my hometown. It was both surprising and so easy to choose this place after five years of being 1,500 miles away. I will be 10 minutes away from my mom, Gerard, and pet-siblings. I’ll be able to help my grandparents with their gardens (yes, that’s plural because they have two of them) this summer. I can take my goddaughter on after-school dates and celebrate birthdays in-person and hang out with my cousins more than just once a year. I’ll get to know my family as an adult. To repair and grow and nurture relationships that deserve to be attended to up close, face-to-face. I’ll get to know my hometown as an adult. It’s a different place from when I left it in 2013. I’m a different person, too.

When I told my pastor I was moving, she pulled me into a hug and said, “I’m just so excited for you! And I’m so, so sad!” And this rang the most true for me and has stuck with me -- in one breath, I’m describing my new job and apartment and adventure, picking up pace and pitch as I talk about all that is to come. In the next breath, I’m teary-eyed after someone’s asked how I’m doing, as I envision all of the lasts that are so close to arriving right in front of me. All of this is hard. It’s confusing. I am so excited. I am so sad.

I’ve known this news for awhile now. I’ve largely sat on it, quietly telling folks as they’ve asked and as I’ve needed to in order to make arrangements for the next steps: my last day at work, how I’m moving my bones across the country, what I want to do before I leave Portland. Even as someone who writes, I did not want to share this news in this way. It didn’t feel authentic to do a blanket “Life Update!” post on Facebook, sharing the news of this very personal life shift so publicly. As an Type 2 on the Enneagram, I felt a bit nervous about writing a whole post about *me* and *my future* to a bunch of y’all that didn’t even ask for that update. Instead, I dreamed of writing letters, or even just sending personalized text messages, to every human I’ve interacted with in Portland who has made an impact on me in my almost-five years here. Goodbyes and transitions are a beautiful time to do that, to dredge up all the memories and feelings and sap I can muster. To remind your people of how much they mean to you. Y’all know I love that mushy shit.

But that is not the reality of my life.

The reality is that I will spend the next week hauling ass to finish my graduate degree. I’ll spend most of my free hours in yoga pants cross-legged on my couch, squinting at the computer screen as I toggle between Google Docs and the Purdue Owl tab to write my final papers. I will spend the next month tying up the loose ends of my work, having last one-on-ones and writing a transition report and holding this duty phone for the last two times. And the small-but-biggest gaps in between those things will be filled with selling furniture, celebrating a graduation, hosting my family in Portland, and writing myself sticky notes so I remember to eat and shower.

It’s not the most idyllic way to end years in Portland -- no bucket list, no extravagant trips or hikes or adventures. I was bitter about it at first; I had these grand plans of what my last days would look like, all of the things I’ve never done in this city that I would squeeze in before I left. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I haven’t done it yet, it’s probably not important to do now. It feels right and beautiful to end my time in Portland just living my regular life -- keeping on with the small-yet-so-very-meaningful things and relationships that have made up my last years here. The students and colleagues and meetings and even the homework and emails and mundane tasks that have filled up my days as I discerned this move, this new job, this shift away from what I’ve come to know and embody and love for the last five years. And that’s enough for me, actually. What these next few weeks hold will be enough -- perfect in its own way. I think, more than anything else, Portland has taught me that. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, is enough.

So, I sit here on my couch -- in yoga pants and squinting, yes -- sharing this news. Feeling excited. Feeling sad.

To all of my Portland people -- I hope you’ll join me on Saturday, June 23rd for a going away gathering. I’ll be posted up at Laurelhurst Park from 2:00-6:00pm. There will be blankets and picnic tables and food and drink. I love potlucks, so bring a potluck item or drink to share if you’re able. I hope you’ll swing by, even for five minutes, for a hug and conversation and a drink. Here’s the link to a little invitation I made. And if you can’t make it, that’s okay, too. Life is busy. I’m a pretty good pen pal even though I’m the worst texter. I’ve taken a fondness for random phone calls. I actually listen to my voicemails. So even if I don’t see you before I pack my life into my car, please stay in touch.

And to my community in Fargo-Moorhead -- Here I come. I’m ready to start scheduling coffee dates. :)

sunrise.

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Even after all this time,
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look what happens with a love like that.
It lights the whole sky.
-Hafiz

I moved this summer, to an apartment within a residence hall in Downtown Portland. Not that my previous apartment — one within a residence hall in Northeast Portland — had me that much more connected to the Earth, but this move seemed to take me just a bit farther from nature. I’m in the middle of a 14-story building filled with college students, in the middle of Portland State University’s campus, in the middle of the concrete and tall buildings and mass transit systems that make up our city. I live on the most populated block in Portland; humans and human-made things surround me.

However, this shift back to the hustle-hustle-hustle pace of Downtown wasn’t much of a shock to me. I knew what living Downtown felt like, and I was excited about the chance to be so close to everything again, so connected to the pulse of this city, to have so few needs for my car on a regular basis. I was excited to be woken up in the early morning because of the garbage trucks, to hear the bells from the MAX as I fell asleep, to know any time there’s a fire or emergency because of the sirens. This kind of connectedness to the heart of things felt good to me. And still feels good.

I didn’t grow up in a traditionally outdoorsy family. It was my mom and me, in North Dakota, which is winter and well-below freezing most of the time. I didn’t like camping, or hiking, or ogle at and respect the landscape around me. It didn't seem like anything special to me; it just was. However, I did spend most of my childhood summers outdoors, at my grandparents’ house, and can still remember staying outside — running through my grandma’s huge flower garden, racing my cousins on our bikes up and down (and up and down, and up and down) the gravel driveway, lying on the grass after a water gun fight — until the sun set. Their Minnesota home was surrounded by fields that stretched for miles, crops sprouting out of the black earth, other homes and humans just specks in the distance. As the sky darkened, and my grandma or grandpa would call us in closer to the house, we’d look out over those fields and see this perfectly round, orange-yellow-red ball floating over the sky and down through the fields. And I remember being fascinated by how this sun thing worked, even as a kid who never had any interest in science other than making volcanoes out of baking soda and water.

“But where did it go?” I would think. ”You’re telling me that little ball lights up the whole sky? For EVERYONE on earth?”

Now, if I can time it right, I wake up with the sunrise. It’s getting harder as we move further into autumn and the sun comes up later while the time I have to be at work doesn’t, but even if I’m already awake, I make a conscious effort to move toward one of my two, five-foot by five-foot east-facing windows and pause. Take a deep breath. Look out. Sometimes I’ll stand with a cup of coffee, or with my hair halfway curled, or even when I’m already running a bit late for that early morning meeting. And from my 9th story apartment, I see the sun rise up over the hills. I can even see a corner of Mt. Hood defiantly peeking around the three tall buildings that block most of its view, with the sunshine behind it. The sky does all sorts of tricks within a five-to-ten-minute period of the sun stretching out over the landscape. Sometimes, it streaks yellows and oranges and pinks through strips of the remaining darkness. Sometimes, the whole sky turns bright pink. Sometimes, like on Wednesday morning, the sun rose through a thick layer of fog — fog so thick that I couldn’t see the bridges or traffic or river. But even when the clouds are heavy, hanging over the city without any glimmer of hope that Portland will see the actual sun that day, it still rises. It still shows up for the city, for us, for the world.

Watching the sun rise has been one of the most powerful experiences of my summer, one that has shaped my time in this new job, in this new apartment, and in some ways, in this new life. To begin each day being greeted by the sun — being grounded by this little orange-yellow-red ball that lights up the whole sky, for everyone in the world, no matter what — and to be reminded that I’m surrounded by nature, by earthiness, even though I live in an apartment within a residence hall in Downtown Portland. It reminds me that just by doing what it does, nature shows us that it loves us every single day. The sun rising, the rain falling, the plants growing, the leaves dropping, the clouds parting, even if just for a moment. And maybe — even if we’re planted in the middle of a bunch of concrete and human-made things — we can show it that we love it, too, by taking a moment to pause in reverence to whatever nature is around us.

for good.

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I've heard it said,
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them.
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you.

—

We needed a song for the 9th grade talent show. 

Someone — maybe her, maybe our choir director, maybe one of our many musical theatre-obsessed friends — recommended a duet from a popular musical that would be just perfect for an alto and a soprano: “What is This Feeling” from Wicked. We didn’t know the tune but quickly fell in love with it: how it played up our personalities (me, the naive goody-two-shoes; she, a bit more sassy), our cheesy choreography (lots of grapevining toward each other and pointing at each other), and the perfectly timed “Boo!” and “Aah!” at the end. We practiced in my bedroom and decorated green and pink t-shirts with our names on the back, like our own kind of theatre jerseys, and performed for the rest of the choir during 3rd period. “Loathing” became our song, and we called it that even though we knew it wasn’t the title. Our non-theatre friends would ask us to perform it in their basements on Friday nights; if they didn’t ask, we’d make them listen to us anyway. 

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I stared down at the empty stage, bouncing my legs up and down like I always do.

I sat on stage right, high up in the balcony, nestled between two of my best theatre (and real-life) friends. It was my first time in New York City, my first time to a Broadway show, and my first time hearing the entirety of the Wicked soundtrack. The first note blared from the pit orchestra -- no peaceful musical overview of the show, no calm introduction to the night, just a straight shot into "No One Mourns the Wicked" -- followed by the next note and the next note, and I was in tears. There were no humans on the stage yet, no words spoken and no lyrics sung, but the chords were enough. I don’t remember if I had thought to pack Kleenex, or if someone handed me one after that first song, or if I just sniffled my way through the entire show, wiping my tears on the coat I had bought just for this senior year trip. I do remember turning to my right and grasping one of those best friend’s hands and holding on for dear, dear life until applauding like the high school girls we were when the song was over.

—

It was always 82 miles. It was always one hour.

Every other weekend during college, I drove north on Friday nights to spend the weekend with my boyfriend at the time. I threw my backpack (thebooks and pens and highlighters replaced with clothes and makeup and a hair straightener) in the backseat, lowered myself into the driver's seat, and grabbed a burned CD from the glove compartment given to me by that same best friend whose hand I grasped so tightly years before. As I merged onto I-94, I pressed play and listened to that same, blaring first note. That hour was almost the perfect amount of time to sing along to the entire soundtrack -- always skipping "A Sentimental Man," but replaying "As Long As You’re Mine" a few times -- before I arrived to my own, 20-year-old, a-bit-more-scholastic version of Fiyero. For that hour each weekend, and sometimes on the return trip, I paused the real world, full of papers and decisions and my own feelings, and belted out words about flying and being green and also being blonde, because when you’re driving alone you get to play both lead roles.

—

Some things were the same. Some things were different.

A few weekends ago, I took myself to see Wicked. I took the bus downtown instead of wandering through Times Square to get there. I sat center stage in the 2nd tier balcony instead of on stage right. I was alone, but that was okay: I brought my own wad of toilet paper from the bathroom stall just outside of Aisle 4. I still bounced my legs and got butterflies in my stomach as the lights went down. I mouthed the words to every song and laughed along at every joke and found new ones I missed. I spent intermission furiously typing most of these sentences in my iPhone’s Notes, recalling the 9th grade choreography and the senior year trip and the college year drives. I held my breath and then quickly exhaled as (spoiler alert!) Elphaba emerges from the trapdoor. I was one of the first in my balcony to pop up at the curtain call, fiercely clapping my hands and sneakily wiping my eyes. I took a selfie with the poster instead of a dramatic, posed photo in front of the billboard.

—

It’s amazing how this one little thing — two-and-a-half hours of words and lyrics composed in the late 90s, which was based on a book written in the mid 90s, which was based on a movie that premiered in the late 30s, which was based on a book that was published in 1900 — can show up so frequently and have such a strong hold on my life. It makes me wonder where else Elphaba, Glinda, and that first, blaring note have shown up for people. How have these songs, these characters, and this story shaped and accompanied and held people? Did Stephen Schwartz and Gregory Maguire and MGM Studios and L. Frank Baum know how their music and words would become permanent placeholders in so many lives?

How many other things like that — like songs and books and quotations and even other humans — show up for us?

I wanted to call this essay anything other than For Good. I mean, really — I can’t think of something more creative than the most popular (and semi-cheesy and sentimental) song title of the musical about which I’m writing? But the answer is no, I can’t. Because cheesy or not, these vignettes of my life over the past ten years — involving friendships that have lasted over distance, other relationships that haven’t, and reminders of music’s powerful ability to reach you no matter where you are — have all had a common note: Wicked. Elphaba and Glinda. That first, blaring note is what has shown up for me. I’m sure I could have found another musical, or a song or a book or a human, that has been a similar throughline in my life.

But maybe it’s true, what they sing in “For Good.” That people — and musicals and songs and books — come into our lives for a reason. My duet partner and my Elphaba, Sara. My best friend and my hand-grasper, Catherine. My then-boyfriend and my then-Fiyero. That they bring us something we must learn, even if we don’t recognize the importance of it until years later. How friendships can last across time and distance. How performing will always be part of who you are, even though now it looks a bit different from when you were 14. How it’s okay to take up space and be in the spotlight instead of the ensemble, and how everyone really does deserve that chance to fly. And how we’re led — drawn or pulled, even — to those people and things, those experiences and moments, that help us to grow — into how to be a friend, how to be a girlfriend, how to be a human.

I think I do believe that’s true. I don’t think I would have written this if I didn’t believe that, somehow, the things that show up in our lives are meant to be there. That we are who we are because of them, because of how they have shown up — once or twice or repeatedly, quietly or loudly or sometimes annoyingly — in our lives. That these things know us as much as we know them. And that (and here it comes, the real cheesy kicker you have been waiting for since you read the title of this essay) they have changed us…

For good.

Wicked in NYC, 2009 & Wicked in PDX, 2015

fargo.

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“Where are you from?”
“Where’s home for you?”
“Where did you grow up?”

A month ago, I hopped on a red-eye flight to my answer for the first time in a year. The last time I was in Fargo, I had been in Portland for a measly four months and was still very much in the honeymoon phase of my new life there (I can bike everywhere, even in December! I live within walking distance of a Whole Foods and a Target! I actually made friends!). I loved that visit to Fargo, but I was still trying to make Portland feel like home. I was eager to return to my half-built life on the West Coast; I didn’t want the honeymoon luster to wear off while I was away. I was worried that if I let myself rebuild things too much—that if I picked up right where I had left off in August—that it’d steal from what I had started to build in Portland. 

Basically, I didn’t believe I could have Portland and Fargo as home; it had to be one or the other.

So Fargo became my hometown, not my home. It became the life I once lived but wasn’t living anymore. I told people in Portland who asked the “Where are you from?” and “Where’s home for you?” questions that while I was from the Midwest, I lived in Portland now; this was home. I reasoned that home couldn’t be a place where I only visited at the holidays. Home was where the real, messy growth happened every day. Home was where I showed up and tried my best or, sometimes, gave up. It was where I walked in the rain and caught the 17 line. It was where I sent hundreds of emails and sat on committees. It was where I met friends for tea and happy hour, where I scrubbed floors and ate standing up at the kitchen counter way more often than sitting down, and where I grappled with questions of faith and vocation and injustice. It was where I felt joyful and peaceful and determined, and also where I felt lonely and confused and stuck. It was where I pictured myself living in a week, a month, a year.

I also wanted to claim Portland as home. I wanted it to be known as the city where I’d be in a week, a month, and a year. I wanted to prove that I had done it, that I had found a place and made it mine, a place that was just as special to me as the place where I had spent the first 22 years of my life. A place that wasn’t just part of the "I-just-graduated-college-and-need-a-wild-adventure-so-I'll-just-move-across-the-country" phase. A place that wasn’t just the next stop in a long line of them. Portland was more than that to me, so I crafted it into a home.

So when I hopped on that red-eye flight a month ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect from my visit. I wasn’t sure how to exist in Fargo while still being true to the home I left out West, the only home where I believed the real, messy growth could happen for me now. But as I got off the plane and slowly immersed myself back into my Fargo life, I started doing what I did in Portland. I put one foot in front of the other each day, opened my eyes each morning, and existed in the world the same way. (Or, at least mostly the same way. I had to drive a lot more because of the, you know,  -35 degree weather and wore more scarves than normal for that same reason.) But just like I did in Portland, I showed up, tried my best, and asked a lot of questions. I let the real, messy growth happen.

I was only in Fargo for two weeks, but I made it home. I allowed myself to find home there. I tossed out this silly idea that I could only have one home, and instead let myself believe that there was enough love and comfort and homeyness to go around in places that are 1500 miles apart. I did more than just show up in Fargo; I grabbed the microphone and took the stage and belted as loud as I could.

I chatted with my 8th grade boyfriend, my junior year fling, and the man I kissed before moving to Portland. In the same night. At the same bar. I was the least helpful member of a trivia team, but was still invited back to play the next week. I disrupted an entire restaurant during dinner because who can contain laughter when talking about high school love?

I sat across from college-year mentors—professors and bosses and advisors, sharing tea or hot chocolate or a meal—who are still mentors, but now, are also friends. I baked sugar cookies from the same recipe, in the same mixing bowl, and with the same kind of sprinkles that my family has used for as many years as I am old. I navigated from one end of town to the other without checking Google Maps, accurately guessed how long it would take get there, and never needed to parallel park. Ever. 

I connected with someone I’ve known from a distance, ate at restaurants that didn’t exist a year ago, and stayed in a new house with a new dog and a new family member. Fargo reminded me of the life I wasn't living full-time anymore, but that didn't mean I had to hold back from life there. Fargo was full of life. Old and new, fun and serious, good and bad. And home is where there is life.

Home is Fargo. And home is Portland. Home is wherever you find it, wherever you are or allow yourself to be in a given moment. Wherever you find yourself surrounded by—or sometimes looking for—love and people and life. Or wherever you find yourself surrounded by—or sometimes running from—challenges and questions and the hard realities of life. Sometimes, home is the place you can’t wait to return to after a vacation, and sometimes it’s the place you can’t wait to leave after a rough patch of life. Home is where you’re from, where you are, and where you’ll be.

Home is Fargo. Home is Portland. Home is where you make it yours.