As we began approaching LAX, the flight attendant began giving us the usual instructions – keep seatbelts on, here is where your luggage will be, and…
“if California is home to you, welcome home.”
It felt as if the plane had dipped down. Memories of 2019 and 2020 came rushing to my head as I tried to remain tear-free as we descended down into Los Angeles. But it was no use.
Home.
California. Where I dreamt about living for so long, and where I moved in 2018. Where Nick and I began writing vows that we’d say out loud in a tiny museum by the sea. Where we first set roots as a family. Where we would let the cliffs and sunsets cocoon us to sleep, to dream, to love. California was our first love. It was home. It is home.
There are so many reasons we decide (or don’t decide but have) to leave a home. It could be safety, it could be adventure, it could a combination of both. When we leave a place that brought us so much joy and growth, I believe the dust from those growing pains lingers, I believe that happiness gets stuck to the coasts and hillsides and earth that watched it all unfold.
Personally, I have felt this in Chiclayo. Each time I go back, I can feel the carefree, skipping, giggling little girl holding her father’s hand down Avenida Balta. It’s why I always want to visit the restaurants I used to, even if they’re not as good anymore. We grow, but I don’t believe it’s linear. I believe we have the capacity to visit old versions of us to (hopefully) give them compassion and care…and the places where those visits happen matter.
But I did not expect to have those feelings up in the air when she said “welcome home.” Because unlike my emigration from Peru, leaving California (ironically, to move TO Peru) was deliberate, planned, anticipated and celebrated. I was ready to seek different paths and go back to my roots. I always thought of California fondly but I never cried for her. Yet there I was, crying at the thought that I, again, had another home in the world I didn’t know I missed until I saw her again.
Tomorrow we are going to the place that really inspired those tears – Monterey. The central coast where Nick and I fell deeply in love, and where I had more self-reflection and awe of the Earth than anywhere else. This time, with our little boy. For the first time he will see the places he only sees hung up on our walls in our house. He will walk around the museum where mama is wearing that white dress. He will splash around the tide pools where his parents were splashing around like children 5 years ago. He will visit the remnants of the joy, love and happiness of a past life he never knew but that had to happen for him to exist. I can’t wait to be there. I can’t wait to come home to you, Monterey.