Green Minds Think Alike

My suitcase sat staring at me emptily in the corner of my room for weeks. I could not bring myself to pack until the day nearly came, partly because I was unsure of how to pack a whole year’s worth of things into one suitcase, but also because I knew that once I did, I would be one step closer to doing the scariest thing I had ever done. When I was a young girl, I always voiced my strong opinions about traveling the world and leaving the small town I grew up in. I would tell my grandmother that I was “a big city girl from a small town world.” While I was correct in the sense that I was from a “small town world”, I can now confirm that I much prefer the countryside.

Less than a week from my departure, I sat with my grandfather on the back porch of his childhood home. “Some of my favorite memories are here on this back porch during thunderstorms,” he said. The storm clouds had just begun to roll in. I asked him about his fond memories as thunder struck above our heads, and he told me of the chronicles of him and his brother playing catch among the pear and apple trees. I recall when my great-grandmother lived within those same walls and how she rinsed my blue-stained fingers after I had a mouthful of the fresh blackberries that she carefully tended to. Though I find myself mourning the same place I always wanted to leave as a child, I am reminded of the many reasons I am doing the work I am in the first place. The same blackberry bushes that stained my fingers blue and purple as a young girl, the houseplants that my mom sang to in our foyer, the 6,000 tulip bulbs we planted by hand at Bell Urban Farm, and the ceiba trees we sat beneath in Costa Rica all remind me of the ways nature has presented itself as a healing force in my own life.

Two days before my inevitable departure, I sat down to journal about the many thoughts spiraling in my head. I found myself looking up through the branches of the tree I sat beneath, as if asking for guidance, and the spirals slowly calmed. I began to think of the ways that I might learn from the tree that towered over me. I thought of how the tree’s body travels, whether by limbs collected by birds or seeds traveling by wind. While parts of the tree travel many places, I looked upon the roots that peeked from the soft soil, nurturing the tree. I then thought of myself, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, mere miles away from the hospital where I was born, and the people and places that keep me grounded and nurture my soul.

The night before leaving, I hugged many of my friends goodbye. The following morning, my family gathered around my mother’s dining room table and shared an incredibly prepared breakfast. It had been too long since the last time we were all together, but in that moment, nothing else mattered. My best friend sat next to me—the closest thing I have ever had to a sister. I smiled and listened silently to the conversation shared, soaking it all in. And then the time came when we stuffed my two red suitcases into the back of my grandparents’ car and drove to the airport. In the car, my grandfather asked me to cue “On the Road Again” by Willie Nelson. We sang the lyrics together: “On the road again. Goin’ places that I’ve never been. Seein’ things that I may never see again. And I can’t wait to get on the road again.” I have not found a way to articulate what that meant to me. 

Once we made it to the Little Rock airport, I was met by my dearest friends, and we embraced and told each other it would be okay. Through tears, I jokingly claimed that I would bother them often, only it was not a joke. I then met my mother’s gaze, and felt the emotions that I was trying so hard to scarf down come out all at once. She has always been my rock. Finally, I waved to my loved ones as I got in line for TSA and looked back one more time before turning the corner. While my body travels, my roots will remain intact.