“You’d be surprised how much sunshine can do for you. Go ahead, try it. Take your shoes off, go in the back yard, stand in the grass and let the sun hit you for a few minutes. If you’re feeling bad for any reason, it’ll make you feel better.”

“I’ll give that a try.”

“I’m not kidding. Okay, I’ve got to go. But I think there’s a reason you and I talked today. Not sure what it is, but there’s a reason. I’ll keep an eye out for your name for when you’re doing some good in this world. Have a nice day.”

*Click*

I sat in a bedroom in Cleveland, listening as the speaker on my Stanford issued IPhone fell silent after 3 and a half hours of lively conversation.

It turned out to be the last conversation I would have in the official capacity as a Stanford fellow, and the way it ended felt appropriate.

Southerners seem to have a fundamental sense of home. I’ve watched eyes glint and heard voices crack while people tried to explain what familiar places meant to them. Memphis and its music brought a 75 year old man to tears in front of me. A few weeks later, a grumpy man told me childhood stories about a patch of land in a particularly rural, soggy part of the South. Two hours into the conversation, he said, “I got just one more good one for ya,” and proceeded to talk for another hour about the various ways he and his brother cut school to go duck hunting.

In many ways, I expected this pride of place. The South is famous for it. “Georgia on my mind”, “Sweet Home Alabama”, “Going Back to Georgia”, “Country roads, take me home, to the place, I belong…..”. For a long time, I thought there was something different about the South that made its people so affectionate to a place that the rest of us are simply confused by. And, to be fair, there are things that make it unique.

I live in Seattle, which is about as far from Montgomery as one can get in the US. It’s August, and the weather here is beautiful, but in slow moments-as I’m falling asleep, when I look at a textured sky, when I smell warm grass-I hear a slight chorus of cicadas marking summertime, I feel the sweat on my back brought on by the onslaught of humidity, and my jaw feels the shock of the first sip of tea. These sensations are vivid, and all along I could see how they establish themselves in identity. The components that nourish a healthy set of roots. The things that make a place home.

That being said, despite an interest in, and affinity for, certain parts of southern life, I never felt home there. So my appreciation for the stories of home that poured forth over the year kind of confused me. I don’t share that specific connection, but it struck a chord in me. At the time, I didn’t question it too deeply.

Then my time in the South ended, and my packed car nosed north from Virginia in an unceremonious trip out of the southeastern United States. It was the first time those weathered California license plates crossed the Mason-Dixon line since August and, with each sip of gas station coffee and bounce of the fishing pole on the dashboard, it gave me a familiar sense of leaving.

I moved 7 times this year, coming and going, arriving for long enough to leave. While an indescribable amount of life happened between each trip, the act of leaving an old place and driving to a new one has become defining in my recollection of this year. It also made me feel uprooted in a way that I had never previously experienced. That wore on me, and by the time I arrived to my girlfriend’s house in Cleveland, I was weary.

We were still working, but the interviews seemed to lose their luster over the phone and, despite good company, the quarantine had driven a sense of malaise into my life. The weeks went by, I did a few interviews and coasted towards the end of the fellowship. Then, just like that, I did my last interview with an older woman from a part of the country I had just left.

Her final words rang in my ears, so I stood up and headed to my girlfriend’s mom’s front yard. The sun was shining, I flipped off my sandals and set my feet squarely in the green grass. Warmth absorbed through the pads of my toes and traced upwards. The sun’s rays hit my shoulders and chest, chasing away a tinge of cold. The energy made its way to my brain and my disposition quickly improved. “Well I’ll be damned. She knows what she’s talking about.”

As I stood in that grass I smiled. I must’ve looked like a fool to the neighbors, but I couldn’t help the sense of relief I had. The previous year came drifting into perspective. I set out to learn about unfamiliar places and people, but I ended up learning profound lessons about myself. While I was listening to people talk about home, I was processing the concept of home in my own life.

My cicadas are crashing waves, my sticky heat is a dry gust of Santa Ana wind, my tea is a spoonful of mole. Coffee with mom in the morning, beer with dad in the afternoon, samosas with my sister. That ivy covered palm tree you can see from the back yard, dancing with Noa while the onions are sautéing, drinking too much whiskey with friends. Home can be a place, but it’s more about an idea. The idea is what brought that 75 year old man to tears, it’s what compelled the other man to tell me stories about his childhood for 3 hours. It’s why Stevie Wonder and Lynrd Skynrd and Jim Croce and John Denver sang their songs. It’s why I’m writing this.

Yesterday I went outside and stood barefoot in the grass in front of my apartment. A lot has changed. From my yard I can see Mount Olympus to the west and the Central Cascades to the east. While I stood there marveling at the rollercoaster of a year, one thing kept repeating in my head. “You’d be surprised how much sunshine can do for you.” And, again, in a new place, I felt at home.