Stability and Land Relations

Stability, true stability, requires both material and emotional safety. I have almost always had the former, but never the latter until recently. Because I'm about to embark on my 4th move in less than 3 years since coming to California, this is something I have been thinking about more often.

Two months ago, I was offered the miraculous opportunity to end these constant moves and by securing a place in what I will call "LJ" no less. I have been blessed by several great loves in my life and "LJ" is the first land among them. For every grain of sand on her shores and every leaf on her foliage, love infuses me. I drum my fingers like a playing child on her beaches and can feel maternity flush in return. I gift her trees with offerings of water and hear their surprised joys in delight. In a secret place where only I know, she hosts Apoll0 where I can speak to him easy even without offerings at hand. She was the birthplace of the comics characters who constituted my first personal spirituality. She has been the birthplace of much of my own storytelling. I long that someday in not too many years she will also be the birthplace of my child.

I yearn for "LJ" like men yearn for women in sundresses, their browned legs shimmering in the high equinox daylight. I yearn for "LJ" like shared connective smiles of those who have known each other for eras. I yearn for "LJ" because every time I enter her and she covers me, I can feel that residing in her coincides with all of my dreams coming to life.

I gave up that miraculous opportunity to go to her this year.

Why? Well... While it came up, another came to tear me in two. It emerged that my friends were wanting to have me move in with them in a house I looked at 2 years ago when I was mobilizing to leave the last place I lived with my ex-husband. I'd be living in the same exact room I originally viewed in the queer community I had been proposed by the previous residents. It's odd how that house has become important to me and how many of my secrets and deepest thoughts it has heard out in its screened patio. Or how much of my writing has flowed in its living room during trans writing nights. Or how a tree across the street once gifted me one of its acorns.

The house wants me there. The street wants me there. My friends want me there.

In a world that so much doesn't want me, it's important to be wanted.

So I have seeded eggplants with one of my friends in the garden. I have purchased and brought over a jasmine plant to sit outside my window so I can smell her as she blooms. I am gradually moving my stuff over and acclimating my dog to their cats.

It's another love story, this one with my friends. It feels the same as moving in with a partner actually. Even as I have recently ended my last relationship, I feel silly in love. I want to cook for the whole group. I want to host Jewish holidays in the common area. I want to wake up in the morning and feel their comforting, accepting presences in the other rooms. I want to invite them on walks in the neighborhood with the dogchild. I want to spend time with them like I have never wanted to spend so much time with anyone outside of past partners.

They won't be there for long. One is moving to Spain to flee the federal administration early next year. One is thinking of trying van life and then moving up to the Pacific Northwest when her work contract is up. The other is still considering whether or not he wants to flee. Myself, I will have finished grad school in 2 1/2 years and will have new choices in a new world.

I will stay. I will go to "LJ" at last. By the time I am able to, thanks to my housemates I will know what it's like to live in a warm, loving home.