home

The trees are yellowing today. They call to me through questionably opened windows. "Is it too cold out there, yet?" begs the still sounding songs from my car's CD player. Maybe a little louder will keep the chill at bay. Maybe it will prevent that buzz at the back of the throat of a seasonal cold that vanishes only under June sun. No, music will not stop time. I don't really want it to, but of course I feel it capture time in sound. From the one-man band on the street corner I stood by for several hours as I volunteered at Ferndale's yearly DIY Street Fair, to Bars of Gold's main stage performance on the fair's last day and my almost tearful reception to every time I see them.

Pensive, maybe. The in-between time so magically referred to in countless traditions of ancestors both distant and near. Struggling to terms with the letting go of winter. How it must become fully, and we all must slowly welcome it, bit by bit, both in celebration and scorn. All are facets of our yearly acceptance. And really, what options do we have to choose from? Fear or love? Both have their roots in the certainty of an emotional investment, and surely any space in the mind deserves as much freqency of the heart. The pitter patter or deafening roar which resides at our utmost center; makes us the complex "us" that no one else knows.

Musing, more likely. The way we wander or our brain does. Sometimes they go on journeys together, and both lose and find, lose and find, constantly giving and recieving. I have given my energy in many directions over the years. Much certainly belongs in Ferndale, a town I've been consequently stationed to observe the reciprocation which has echoed in my direction from my humbled hummings. There I learn; there I grow.

There I realized many times over the past weekend why I've felt at home here. The people I share my time with, new friends or old friends. Long talks or brief hellos. The awkward and the heartwarming, we are nothing if not together, and as an only child I have only really felt brothers and sisters in this city. As family belongs at our center, so must we have a center to call our own. So, to Ferndale, I call you "home".