In California, I lived mere steps from natural park that stretches on for miles. When I was little, my father and I use to cut through the park as the sun rises, trekking towards a grocery store that laid on the other side. We would carry home loaves of garlic bread, a gallon of milk, and whatever else my mom needed to make breakfast. Through the years, this place developed a strange significance: it made me feel American. Before moving to California full time, I never experienced waving hello to neighbors as they run through the park with their dogs. Or seen families have picnics on warm days. And I especially have never seen the amount of recent retirees, as they sit on a lawn chair fishing all day. This park represented my quintessential American-ness. I learned how to ride a bike here. I had my seventeenth birthday party here. I sat on a bench with my first serious boyfriend here. And then again on the same bench the day after he became my ex-boyfriend, here.
My 17th Birthday Party
Camden Park, Elk Grove, CA. Fall 2015.
This place became my safe haven. Even after my family moved away, I would drive to the park. Sometimes to relive old memories, sometimes to make new ones. Sometimes just to be, other times to do something. I came here to cry, to be happy, to think, to put my face in the sun.
The hardest part about moving away from home was losing my quiet serenity. Moving into downtown Washington D.C., there was a glaring lack of peace. The green spaces, however, big or small, was surrounded by high-rises and steel office buildings. The space, however, beautiful was infected by the constantly blaring of sirens. This idea of a having a space wasn’t even something I knew I needed.
So the search began. While there is something to be said about the view from the top of the Lincoln Memorial at night, my place in DC was much simpler. Just off of Thomas Circle, sits a church. I’ve walked by it a hundred times without it ever leaving an impression. I’ve still never been in inside, but the flight of stairs leading up to the entrance became mine. From up there, I would watch the world move — a couple coming out of Chix, a man walking home with Whole Foods bags, a woman walking towards the gym. But from up there, I could just be still for a little while. Quiet the rapid successions of thoughts in my mind and sit. I’ve never been a religious person, but on a freezing night in February I swore those stairs called out to me. In front of a church, I found my personal sanctuary.
I have since moved again, to the city that never sleeps. I’m still looking for my sanctuary. For now, find me lost. Find me wandering.
