Home is Where the Moon Sets (From Flower Blog Two: Stories From Down Under)

Had someone told me five years ago that after living in Vail for awhile I would think the best way to celebrate the end of a winter season is to spend a few days camping and playing in Moab, Utah, I would have been skeptical. When I moved to Vail sleeping in a tent and not showering for a few days did not excite me (click here to read about my first camping trip in Colorado on Flower Blog). Five years later and I found myself squeezing in a 4-day trip to Moab between finishing work, packing my life into a very small storage unit, and tying knots in all the ends that needed to be tied before I leave Vail for Australia. And it was worth it.

The view from my tent in Moab, Utah

There’s something exhilarating and cleansing about that annual pilgrimage of Vail residents to the high desert. It’s the moment when everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief that the chaos of winter has ended. People let their hair down. They whoop and laugh loudly on the river and continue to eat, drink, and be merry into the night while gathered around big campfires. It’s a big familial celebration and always a good time.

I was sitting around the campfire on the last night of the trip this year watching my friends, many of whom have become family to me over the years, laugh and talk and I realized that I was home. Not home in Moab but home with these people and home in moments like that. This epiphany shocked me at first. I’ve called Vail home over the years but I’ve also called Michigan home, although somewhere during the past year or so I believe I stopped calling Michigan home. I never expected Vail to become home, never knew when I moved there that it would become home. But that’s what it is, and not just because all of my stuff’s there or because I have a 970 area code or a Colorado driver’s license; because those aren’t really the things that make a place home. It’s the people you love and the experiences you share with them that make a place home, that shape who you are and tie your heart to a place.

Vail has a very transient population and I realized early in my time there that as long as I live there I would always be saying good-bye to people. I hate that. Good-byes are exhausting. I learned quickly that these farewells had to be quick and, sometimes, even a little impersonal. A hug and a “see you later” and that’s all that’s needed, especially because I’ve also realized that many of the people who leave come back. Vail has that kind of pull on folks.

With the end of this year’s Moab trip came my turn to say good-bye. This time I was on the opposite end of quick hugs and “see you laters.” It was harder for me than I thought it would be to be the one leaving and I almost wanted everyone to be sadder to see me go.

The morning I left Vail was cold and clear. It was 4:30 in the morning and I went outside to take the trash out before my 5:00 am airport shuttle arrived. It was still dark, right before the first hints of daylight arrive, and the moon was incredible. It was setting in the west over the mountains and it was glowing and huge. It felt like a little “see you later” from Vail. And it struck me that there was no need for myself or anyone else to be sadder to see me go because the best thing about knowing where home is, is that you can and will always find yourself there again. And, if home really is with the people you love, and the people you love are scattered around the globe, then you’re really never that far away from home.