written by Stephie Goldfish on July 29, 2010
When
I was a child, I lived and grew up in seven states within the U.S., all by the time I was twelve years old; this even before
entering Junior High School.
I lived in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia area right on the beach in an
eight apartment building ran by an older woman who had rented us an apartment over top of my cousins’ apartment. My
twin sister, two cousins, and I explored that beach like we were settlers from the old world; it was all so new to us. We
came to know the times of high-tide and low-tide. At night, we’d lie awake and listen to the waves crash on the shore.
And it was a healing time, and the first time I remember living near an ocean and open space so vast.
I’d
sometimes look out on the horizon and dream of a world so far away. I’d feel the greatness of the watery deep and the
greatness of God, knowing how He set the boundaries of water and earth. We came to familiarize ourselves with all the creatures
of the sea, and loved to watch the sunrise over the glistening water. Sometimes, the sun seemed to be falling back to earth.
We
lived there but a short time, living through fall, winter, and part of spring, but we enjoyed seeing the beauty of the ocean
changing throughout these seasons.
Then we lived in Lawton, Oklahoma. Oklahoma was so different from where I had
originally been born in West Virginia and the opposite of where we lived in Virginia on the beach. But my sister and I came
to love the prairie fields with its many little prairie dogs, and the horizons that seemed to go on forever.
Oklahoma
is where we first read about the American Indians and their history, and we experienced firsthand their presence in Oklahoma
with the Indian Reservations and having friends that were American Indian. And this place was the first time I’d say
we lived in a paradise — not physical, but a spiritual paradise — because my mother had come to be reinstated
back into our faith and we were thus brought back to our first love of God and his truth in the Bible.
We
enjoyed so many friends and association. We’d put on small plays like Moses Parting the Red Sea with our childhood friends
from the local congregation. We attended big and small assemblies, and a whole new world opened up to us as far as knowing
that there are so many that need to hear God’s loving word. One time, at an assembly, we saw a slide-show of the work
being done in Africa. And what struck my funny bone was their love for chewing gum, of all things. We take so many things
for granted.
At another point, after having moved back to West Virginia and back to Oklahoma again, we moved
to Azusa, California, with its green painted lawns and pink stucco homes, and instead of fire drills we would have earthquake
drills, where we’d have to get under our desks.
California is the one place where we’d go up to the
snow covered mountain peaks, and in the same day head to the beach and swim; it was so warm. This time living in California
was the second time we had lived there, the previous time being when we were babies. This second time we were old enough to
remember and appreciate it. We learned hand ball and tether ball. We had field trips every month. Once, my class had a field
trip that lasted four days. We went to the San Gabriel Mountains where we climbed down a cliff and we drank from a creek or
geyser dipping the crystal clear cold water up to our mouths with our bare hands. I happened to be fortunate to have got this
field trip in, because by the time my sister’s class got to go to the mountains for their field trip, we moved back
to West Virginia. We were about eleven years old.
And we always loved coming home to our home state of West
Virginia when we were young. Our grandmother was still alive and we loved visiting her and being there to help her. This was
before so many tragedies began to choke the life out of our family.
This, I’d say, was our great education,
moving to so many new and exciting places, and all the tragedies in our lives made us more aware at an early age and open
to others’ ideas and opinions.
And one can see why from my history I chose to live in such a chaotic place as
New York City, after graduating from art school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. New York City was excitement, but it was also
where we could feel normal after what my sister and I had lived through. New York City became my home for so long; I got to
know every corner and every borough like the back of my hand. We even ventured up to Harlem despite everyone’s warning.
New York City was the jungle we got lost in; it was like living in the eye of a hurricane.
We came to love every
aspect of New York City: The doctors, the variety of people with their different accents, the culture and food, the museums
and all the best art in the world, two of the best psychologists and three of the best psychiatrists, and the very best cardiologist
in the world.
This was where we each fell in love, like the song says, “When you get caught
between the moon and New York City, I know it’s crazy, but it’s true, the best that you can do is fall in love.”
Today,
I live in North Carolina, my father’s home state and where he grew up. I have come to love the Carolina moon, the tall
pines and big oak trees, the Crepe Myrtles, and the Crystal Coast, and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In
her book, God in the Yard: spiritual practice for the rest of us, L.L. Barkat say’s, “There is a part of
me that feels pinched in this life — a life I freely chose when I put distance between me and my growing-up place. But
it’s no fun to live with the pain of pinching. That is why I first returned to the woods.”
Thus,
that is why I returned to my heritage state of North Carolina to gather some small semblance of my past. And so I could move
forward to the future. As L.L. Barkat also reasons that, “It might be an exaggeration to call the trees in my back yard
woods.” It’s also an exaggeration to call North Carolina my home, because of having lived and experienced
so many places. But I will for now call West Virginia my front yard and North Carolina by back yard. And all that I’m
made of, my house, is a direct influence of all the places in between — starving artists while attending art school
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the hustle and bustle of New York City and all its craziness, sunny filled days in L.A., the
plains of Oklahoma and Texas, and the beaches of the east and west coast — all keeping the boundaries of my soul. One
can enjoy all these places and doesn’t have to choose, especially with God in the yard.
If I could, I would return
to…
(See you in Week 2)
