"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware." - Martin Buber
This past Tuesday was Mardi Gras. Ten years ago, I would’ve
spent the day in New Orleans watching the parades, or at the very least eating
a king cake and hanging out with family. This year, though, like every year for
the past ten, I put on a Louisiana-themed T-shirt (this time: my New Orleans
water meter shirt from Storyville) and went to work like it was any other
day.
I’ve been living in the San Francisco area for a decade now,
and I love it out here. There’s a lot to love: great weather, great food, great
people. Mountains an hour in one direction, a beach an hour in the other. And,
before I had my Small One, there was Wine Country. ;) But no matter how much I enjoy
being here, I’ll never love it the way I love home.
I miss the things you’d expect. The food, for one. In honor
of Mardi Gras, my day job cafeteria served “jambalaya,” and jambalaya is in
quotes because while the food was good, and it contained some of the ingredients
one might guess were in jambalaya after looking at a picture, it was not
jambalaya. I miss LSU football games. I miss the cadence of Southern accents and the relentless green of
the Louisiana landscape.
I miss the things you’d think I wouldn’t. The rain. Real rainstorms, not the gentle,
obligingly brief showers we get in San Francisco. I want warm, muddy rivers in place
of the clear, cold Pacific. I want humidity so thick it feels like the air is
holding you up.
I’m not sure I could have written this list before I left
home. Before I’d done much traveling, I didn’t know what would be different
enough to miss. It’s one of the great gifts of living in new places—you get to
look back at where you’ve come from and see it for the first time, like an
astronaut looking down at Earth. But the price of that gift is homesickness.
The thing about this homesickness is, it feels like
stretching an overworked muscle. It’s painful, but in a good, needful sort of
way. I like reminding myself of what home feels like, even when it hurts. Going
back—at least permanently—isn’t in the cards for me right now, and I suppose
that’s why most of the stories I write are set in the South. I’m getting there
the only way I can.
What do you love most about the place you call home?
--
A.J. Larrieu is the author of the upcoming urban fantasy Twisted Miracles, which is set in New
Orleans and does, in fact, contain jambalaya. It releases on April 7, 2014 from
Carina Press. To celebrate, she’s giving away a few unique pieces of
her home state—find out more here.
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