Where I’m From
“I had an inheritance from my father, it was the moon and the sun. And though I roam all over the world, the spending of it’s never done.” — Ernest Hemingway
My home is quick and silent foothills.
27 years and it still hits like an abrupt force when I catch them between trees and street lights, above the rise of the bench. Like the moment you jump into a cold body of water. To tell the truth, I am defenseless: compelled to stop and touch my eyes to as much of that land, strange and captivating as it is.
I drive east. Downtown rises up and the foothills behind. Or from the Chinden ridge, like a fence line distant and to the north. I should watch the road but if I look away from the hills they might be lost, so I grab for them, left to right to left to right again like reading words over and over.
I see them again from my driveway. They are gold or peach-colored in the sunset, visible in a brief, quiet moment to the northeast filling the space between the neighbors’ tall evergreen trees.
My house is not rich enough to live further up the bench, on ground higher and substantial as to afford more views of the hills. Even so.
