Ripped

This morning while taking Scooter out and passing by one of our empty, mulch-covered beds against the house, I had an immense urge to rip out the weeds with my bare hands. They're mostly along the edge of the drive, growing up between the cement and the cylindrical wood beams meant to define the space. And there are all kinds, all grouped and looped and green.

The largest weed I don't like to think of a weed at all; in fact, I wish it would grow all alongside the house with its purple, geometric flowers and three-foot height. It alone colors the bed, the house, in one outgrowth near the side steps. If I pulled it, there would be nothing. If I pulled it, I would be exterminating a living thing with no name. If I pulled it, I would be killing it for the sake of taking control of nature. Who's to say a weed is an enemy? Who's to say a flower isn't a flower? I have nothing to grow in its place.

Out back, one bell pepper and one patio tomato plant grow in containers against the house. They're blooming with small fruits, the first I've ever grown. Though small, they're carrying a lot of weight, bearing forth on the rise up.

Meanwhile, I've grown this summer myself, taking on some weight in the adjustment to working from home. I've sat, I've eaten, I've watched a lot of Netflix. I didn't even see if happening, even when my shorts from last summer wouldn't fit, until I found my scale and got on it for the first time in four months. It's not about the weight, but it's knowing where I used to be, how my body used to feel, and lamenting the work it will take to get back there--so much more work than it took to get here.

But it's August. And August is traditionally a month of new beginnings because, despite trying to free myself, I'm still tied to the academic schedule. It's a new year, another opportunity to start over, to remake yourself, to be who you want to be.

So today I started the Ripped in 30 program and, though I finished my first workout more than two hours ago, my muscles are still twitching and shaky. Yeah, I'm starting from the beginning. And this time I'm going to make it to the end because, despite having qualms about ripping out weeds where otherwise there is no green, this fat doesn't belong in my body. I am not at war with my body; I desire peace, the cultivation of health. Because I deserve it.

The other new beginning is the incredible new job I start on Monday, building on all I learned in Spartanburg and allowing me to work deeply with Hutchinson. More about that later, but, for now, it's on to writing about bears.

Going forward by going back

Snickers, my 7.5 year old cat, has decided she wants to explore the outdoors now that we're rooted in a home. She must convene with the 4+ roaming neighbor cats at some point in her adventures, but I always see her alone, swaying up with driveway when she sees me at the back door. Scooter nudges her in the face to say hello. She rubs my leg. She is herself, still, but with stories to tell of the outer life.

The other morning I took Scooter out to the backyard for a stretch and heard her meow. I knew it was her; we've lived together over five years now. I walked around the yard, looked up in the trees, and then spotted her stripes through a slit in the solid white fence. But I saw now slit large enough for her to fit through and now way, beyond opening the neighbor's gate, to help her out. And so I went back to Scooter, thinking she could get out if she knew how to get in. And of course just a few minutes later she strolled up to say hello. Clearly her habit of opening cabinets has paid off in her ingenuity during her outdoor pursuits.

I know, I know. It's much safer for cats to be indoor cats, but we're home now, where we'll be for a long time, and so I couldn't keep her inside anymore. I wouldn't want that for myself if I were her. Because I, too, am attempting the outdoors now, finding the wild in Hutchinson. For now, it's the Arkansas River (Our-kansas), meandering the middle sandbars last week and this week skirting the edge because the water is actually high enough for it to fill most of its banks and flow. Flow like a true river.

Yes, I'm mourning the mountains. I'm mourning friends. I'm mourning friends in the mountains.

I'm mourning the loss of who I was in Spartanburg, the girl I got to know, the girl who got to know the world. And realizing that starting over is the hardest part. Starting is the hardest part.

But I'm starting. 

Today I begin teaching online composition at Hutchinson Community College, the place where this whole journey began. It was my Honors Comp I professor and the head of the department, Trudy Zimmerman, that saw something in me I'd never considered: a writer. She encouraged me to study English, to try working on a magazine, to consider grad school down the line. She got me working in the department as a scholar and tutor. She took me to Europe. Simply, she opened up the world to me, and now she's giving me the opportunity to give that back to students ten years later. Going forward by going back.

So much has come full circle from ten years ago, when I had just graduated from high school. I remember a busy Memorial Day weekend at Alco, the discount store I worked at for four years, and meeting the new hot guy with blond curly hair who would work the garden center that summer. Over the next two years, Phillip and I would become close friends. I would tell him things I didn't tell anyone else. We would share music and coffee at Hastings. I would go to his concerts and sit with him in the pep band. He was a friend, nothing more, but a friend I could never fully let go of over the next seven years of lives far apart, with different relationships and evolving passions. And so a year ago we would meet again, pick up right where we left off, and take it farther. And eleven months after that he would drive me and all that I'd gained in all of those years home to Hutchinson to start our life together. Together at last. Going forward by going back.

Those two anchors from ten years ago, Trudy and Phillip, have given me two roots to ground myself in Hutchinson as I recreate myself once again. From here, I'm spreading out into the community to go deeper.

It has been a quick first month here, mostly spent at home. But I'm starting to kick myself out of the house to explore the city and myself. I'm returning to writing, to reading, to learning, to teaching. I'm opening up the door to let in old friends and new friends and possible passions and pursuits and, sometimes, a sweet tabby cat with some new stories to tell.

On leaving and arriving

I've kept myself at home over the last week and a half, busily unpacking every box, cleaning every room, alphabetizing every shelf. In part because Phillip and I are homebodies and we like to relax together watching River Monsters (woah, guys) on Netflix--that is, whenever he can get me to relax and slow down, as it seems I have lost all sense of what it means to relax over the last decade. But also because we didn't need anything outside of the house except to see our families and introduce Scooter to the neighborhood. I stayed home, and perhaps (besides the unpacking) it felt too much like a vacation because it wasn't until I ventured out on my own on Saturday that it hit me: I'm not in Spartanburg anymore.

I was driving down Plum, an old, familiar street, to the 30th St. Dillon's we always went to growing up, when I saw a man in khakis, glasses, and a ball cap walking on the sidewalk. Phillip Stone! my mind told me, and I lifted my hand to wave. But my excitement over a friend's face was quickly replaced by the sudden let-down that it couldn't possibly be Phillip Stone because he doesn't live here, because I don't still live where he lives.

Just a block later I pulled into the Dillon's parking lot and glanced into a passing car to see a curly-haired man--Nick Isaksson! my gut said. But, no, Nick Isaksson drives a red sports car, not a blue one, and he lives in the town I no longer do.

By this time my heart had sunk. By this time the mourning for Spartanburg had set in. By this time I realized those faces I looked forward to seeing on the street and at HUB-BUB and on mountain trails wouldn't be the faces I saw anymore. I was back to before faces, faces of a life long ago, faces I wanted to see ... eventually, but not instead of Spartanburg faces. So I didn't even feel like going into the store anymore, sick with the feeling of loss, but I needed a Plus card and I needed groceries for dinner. And because the universe didn't think I'd felt it acutely enough yet, a tall man with short hair and a thick, raggly red beard walked out as I walked in. Jonathon Knight! I wanted to yell, and walk up to him with a high-five. But, alas, I knew it was not and could not be Jonathon Knight.

Thus began my panic attack in the customer service line at Dillon's as I waited ten minutes to get a discount card.

I didn't think it would be like this, but I also didn't know what to expect upon moving back to my hometown, the one I left eight years ago swearing I would never return to. But I also never expected to find Phillip again, to fall in love, to know that he would be the one thing that could bring me back, and to have him be the thing that brought me back. And into his (our) adorable home. With a dog and a cat. With a whole heck of a lot of books. And with a heart heavy for a Southern town that had so embraced me as their own.

I intended to write a love letter to Spartanburg before I left, but, as with nearly every letter I tried to sit down and write, I couldn't actually convince myself that I was leaving. Like, for good. Yes, I had given up my amazing job (ouch), was packing my sweet abode in Duncan Park (ugh), and was, night by night, sharing final drinks and conversations with the closest friends I've, well, ever made (sob). But it didn't feel real, permanent, about to actually happen. It didn't feel real on the morning we left, as I said final goodbyes to Erin, Erica, and Sara. It didn't feel real as we guided the 16ft truck with the car attached through the neighborhoods and out of town. It didn't feel real when we pulled up in front of the house in Hutch and Scooter leaped from the truck and chased two cats up trees in his first five minutes as a resident. Nope, it wasn't real until that first Saturday afternoon, here nearly a week, when I realized what and who was gone. The lush, tall trees are gone, too; the sky is full above.

But here's what I do have: the most amazing boyfriend who feeds my mind and deepens my soul and fills my heart, the start of a teaching career at the college where I began, the closeness of my brother and parents and grandparents who have always supported me, and the opportunity to bring back all I learned from that incredible little city in South Carolina to see how I can impact this hometown of mine. Because, Spartanburg, I wouldn't be back here if you hadn't taught me about the necessity to love and build my own community, to take risks and be myself, to live openly and adventurously, to jump in where I'm needed, and to understand how we are all connected by the desire to listen and be heard. I'll say it again: Spartanburg changed my life. And now I'm here to run with it in my brand new blue shoes.

But I might be waving at strangers for a while.

Erin and I at the 2013 Expecting Goodness Short Film Festival on March 23. Fancy!

Sara and I at an RJ Rockers Taste & Tour. Love love love.

Erica, Sara, and I before we saw Ira Glass at the Peace Center in Greenville.

Amanda, Nick, Michelle, and I on Party Rock of Rumbling Bald Mt. above Lake Lure, NC. Amazing.

Sara and I--prom dates!--at the HUB-BUB Second Chance Prom.

Darryl and I--second prom date!--at the HUB-BUB prom.

Ladies! at the HUB-BUB prom.

We drink beer in the rain! With Alex, Lee, Sarah, Jonathon, Amanda, and Erica (behind the camera) at the Best Firkin Beer Festival in Asheville.

Happy in the rain, still! At the super beer festival.

Love these ladies lots--and the beer.

Erin, aka Office Wife, and I after the Josh Rouse concert in Asheville. Super special.

Scooter and I saying goodbye to the Cottonwood Trail and the Lawson's Fork.

Erin, Betsy, and I on my last day. Truly, the end of an era. All I could do was smile because I love and respect these women so much.

A sweet farewell from former Spartanburg mayor Bill Barnet, who never ceased to tell me he loved me.

Dear, sweet Madelaine and I during my last few minutes (literally) as a Hub City employee.

One final Taste & Tour with Erin. Drunk on a cup.

What I consider my first home. Lakeside Drive, you're forever in my heart.

A life in a truck. Mostly all in, mostly all by myself.

Scooter from his small floorspace in the Budget truck. He never complained. Not once.

My first glimpse of Hutchinson as we arrived home, just before dark.