Streets, Deserts, and Trees: How I'm Trying to Find Home
I left two years ago.
I followed a lover (their name is Julian, and, yes, we’re still together) to New York City, uprooting myself from home and leaving behind everyone I knew. I laughed, I cried, but I learned and I grew. Yet, at no point was I secure enough to feel settled, or convinced enough to say that New York was “home”.
Over a year and a half of waking up before dawn, dragging myself to a barren subway stop to wait in the cold, nodding off through a forty-five minute commute, and beating my body in a bakery came with its dues. I was broken. I wasn’t getting enough sleep, my feet and back throbbed with pain every morning, and my knees buckled and snapped whenever I tried to squat.. I wasn’t giving my body a chance to rest: physically, mentally, and emotionally.. I spent my weekends in a too-small, too-expensive apartment hiding from the world, treading water and dissociating. Julian and I’s relationship had suffered because of my exhaustion and apathy.
This was what I wanted, at one point, but now the actual price of living here became apparent. Was I in line with my values? Had I gotten swept up and thrown around? I was at a point of exhaustion where the only clear way out was to do just that–get out.
After two years of being ground up by the greatest city on Earth, we decided to leave. We figured: The city would always be there if we wanted to come back, right? Julian and I were becoming hill-towners at their sister Ashton’s house, along with her husband Adam, Ashton’s mother Allison, and two dogs: Frank and Buddy. They bought a farmhouse nestled outside the Hudson Valley. It sat on three acres, enclosed by red maple and birch. Outside the kitchen door stood two massive cypress trees, at least 100 feet tall, There was a barn and a creek nearby. To me it was the picturesque, bucolic fantasy of my dreams. I signed on without hesitating, not even for a second. A reckless decision, but not an irregular one.
Solitude, a chance to rest, and not having to run the gauntlet of finding a new apartment in the city. Leaving the subway system meant we’d need a car, so we went back to Nevada, gave our families all our love, and drove back. Two and half years of restricted travel, social distancing, and the trauma of surviving the pandemic made life on the road sound invigorating–and unnerving. We both grew up in the wild, untamed desert of northern Nevada with the Sierras as our playground. Julian and I both yearned for proximity to nature, an abundant supply of new wilderness to explore, and a general sense of slowness. Driving across the country, leisurely taking in its slow, amorphous transformation from arid interstellar beauty to pastoral woodlands and grassy beaches was how we wanted to celebrate our move upstate.
Heading Out
We drove away from the sun along prehistoric lake beds choked with spindly sage and rabbitbrush, mountains rising all around us. A landscape rich with nostalgia: dinners with family, long drives through the night to hidden hot springs, cigarette smoke wafting under the Milky Way; hazy afternoons swimming in rivers and lakes, then walking through forests scented with aspen and pine.
A life dictated by seasons and temperature, that’s what I missed the most. We watched the mile markers go by as tears fell down our faces and into our laps; the quiet suffering of saying goodbye again and again, but also, the thrill of adventure and the chase for novelty.
Driving across Highway 50 was a time machine through life in the Great Basin; Small dusty pioneer towns devoid of people, covered walkways, peeling paint off dessicated, stone-gray wood underneath. Saloons, antique stores, and old theaters. Relics from an era of quick, concentrated wealth, and the inevitable bust. This was as far into the heart of my home state as I’d ever been. In Austin I looked back; the clouds floated across the turquoise sky, where they covered the mountains with large mats of blues and purples napping against the golden yellow of the valley floor. The air was still, the silence so thick I could hear my heart. We climbed and dropped through constant basins and ranges until we arrived at Ward Charcoal Ovens, a state park set on a sloping valley floor, enclosed with sagebrush and wiry shrub forests.
I recognized the feeling that first night. There’s a sigh that happens, coming from the center of your body. You breathe out, relax your shoulders, stretch your legs, and feel all the world’s worries slip off you. Your job? You’re not there. A phone call? Even if you have service, it’s probably terrible. There’s an emergency and you’re not available? Tough luck. You’re here now, present and feeling the moment with all of your senses. The worry and uncertainty I had brought all these miles was so distant from me. I struggled to remember why I had felt so overwhelmed to begin with. The world was totally different now, and I liked it.
The next day we broke down and set off, drowsy from exposure to the cold and wind, but filled with fresh enthusiasm. We stopped at the namesake ovens to satisfy our curiosity.
Alex at the Charcoal Ovens. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Inside of Charcoal Ovens. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Charcoal Ovens with Julian. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
The beehive-shaped ovens were built in the early 19th century by pioneer prospectors seeking to capitalize on a silver strike nearby, in the town of Ward. They would chop down the spindly, fragrant juniper and piñon pine growing nearby, stack it in piles inside the chamber, and slowly burn it over the course of three days. The resulting charcoal would be shipped off to fuel the smelters. A continuous, labor-intensive process that went on until the veins eventually ran dry. The ovens were hand-built, with local stones, and towered over the juniper trees. They seemed so alien, yet still into the landscape. I was not a part of this place either, by birth anyways, yet the smell of sagebrush and the sight of magpies bouncing across the steppe was as comforting to me as speaking Spanish at home. Paired with the cool silence of the high desert, softened by the morning breeze, it was an appropriate way to say farewell.
Into The Southwest
Utah meant straight-very straight–roads, dust storms, fifty miles between towns, and two anxious people in a car with attention-deficit tendencies. After two hours of salt flats, road trip games, and small cattle towns, we crossed over the Wasatch mountains and came out into the rust-colored deserts of southern Utah.
Nowhere else does looking at dirt and rock inspire so much wonder and awe. The hues and shades, reminiscent of citrus and clay and flesh. The contrasting topography, filled with towering spires and mesas outlining huge valleys and salt washes. It was remarkably special. As we pulled into Green River, the sun started to set and we worried about the winds screaming down the canyons. We set up our tent in a stand of elm trees, hoped for the best, and ate cookies under a lantern while Julian googled can bears smell food through cars? and can bears smell period blood?
As I fell asleep, I ran through the conversations we shared that day. We both yearned for the sense of safety and support that home came with, to be close to our families and to share our lives with them, but life had changed us, and we were no longer satisfied with the comfort of staying in the same place we were raised in. Life in New York had become brutal and unforgiving, but it was also filled with irreplaceable moments of joy and discovery. When you wake up and see Manhattan outside your window, you can’t help but feel that you’re at the center of something.
I fell head-first into Brooklyn, taken not only with the pace and attitude, but mostly the wonderful feeling of knowing that my culture and heritage were not foreign and strange. In the city, being Colombian was a vibrant and colorful experience, and one that many people were familiar with and enjoyed. People told me about their drunken resort visits in Cartagena, or their favorite Jackson Heights spots. Growing up, I was always Mexican, Middle Eastern, or related to Pablo Escobar. I was taken back by how sad I felt, when I realized I had spent most of my life stifling such a central part of my sense of self, my family, and my concepts of home.
But home means Nevada It was fixed, secure, and reliable. All our friends and family, our favorite parks and secret getaways, our joy and our misery. Living somewhere long enough convinces you that life can only look a certain way. We had grown blinders; wrapped ourselves in a blanket of security and predictability.
Moving to New York ripped the blanket from us. Leaving our childhood home to start a life with hopes of abundance and connection in another place was an exhausting, but transcendent experience. The bewilderment of realizing just how large and boundless the world–and our possibilities–could be. And, for both of us, an unexpected reckoning with our own mortality, and the emotional pendulum of trying to hang on to what was safe and familiar, while also striving to stake out on our own.
We both feared what moving away meant. It meant that we would miss birthdays and holiday gatherings. It meant that if any sickness or injury hurt someone we loved, we wouldn’t be there. It meant that we had to find meaning and purpose in leaving, that somehow all this distance and struggle had to amount to something, otherwise, it was just selfish to let our families grow older and watch our friends move on. And yet here we were: ambivalently driving through New Mexico.
Another sunset in New Mexico. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Utah. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Our conversations, along with salt and vinegar chips and smoked meat sticks, fed us through the long days of driving. It gave us laughter and tears as we dropped out of the desert plateaus and into the Great Plains.
A Reunion
I had never been to Texas. It existed only as a mythological being within the digital-cultural lexicon. A large, impenetrable mass in the center of the country filled with larger-than-life ideals and abhorrent politics. Texas was not only a state but a style, a manner of being, a way you put on your jeans. We crossed the border into golden grasslands, flat as a plate, with hundreds of bone-white windmills slowly churning in the sun. An abandoned boat, caked with rust, sat beside the highway. Further down, a man in a denim shirt and jeans with a cowboy hat was trying to put out a brushfire by whipping it with his leather jacket. A police officer watched nearby. It was all very surreal and cinematic.
We stayed with Julian’s brother, his wife, and their five-month-old baby in Amarillo. I held baby Max while we played Dungeons and Dragons together and ate cheap pizza, and I washed myself after four days of sleeping in the dust. It was such a sweet, wonderful break from camping.
Windmills in Texas. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Gloomy Waffle House. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
The Midwest is wonderful, filled with quaint American charm and the kind of value-driven people who feel that it is only good manners to inquire about your personal affairs.
In St. Louis, we stayed at a Victorian English-themed hotel with a group of priests speaking at a local seminary. Tulsa had more churches in its downtown area than anywhere I’d been before, and in Columbus, we drank espresso served in an abandoned cathedral. This was the heart of white, Christian America, not a place I ever seriously considered buying a home in. I romanticized the simple, honest simplicity and natural hospitality. The unflinching coolness of people in the city seemed so foreign to me now, but I remember leaning into it when I was there. Was it possible to take the best from both? Or did that make me insincere?
We passed slowly through Ohio and West Virginia, the mountains and forests bringing us fond memories of the Sierra. Small towns tucked in narrow valleys filled with brick buildings and rich, diverse communities we didn’t expect. All of this, while taking in the calm, pastoral beauty of the Appalachian mountains, and quietly dreading having to empty out our shoebox Brooklyn apartment.
Arriving outside Albany at dusk, a car full of camping gear and sweaty, stenchy bodies in tow, we unpacked what we could, fell on the bed, and slept for an eternity. The next morning we woke up in an idyllic valley surrounded by soft green hills and barns scattered about. This was it, what we had wanted and dreamt about and gotten ready for, and it all felt so–well, it didn’t feel like much of anything. It was odd. I was expecting satisfaction, a sense of finality. Instead, I was left feeling happy, and rested, but not done. There were still a few days of driving, a whole apartment to pack up and clean, and a list of internal struggles and questions to sit with. No, I was definitely just beginning.
Ohio skyscape. Image courtesy of Alex Espitia.
Growing Roots
I’ve been here for just over a few weeks now. Julian and I are learning how to share a single room and letting things take their time. The closest town is forty minutes, our neighbors are about a quarter of a mile away and to get to their house you have to pass through a thicket of woods. There is no traffic, no delis, no street food, and very little in terms of human civilization. It feels easy to spend the days lounging, waiting for something to ignite us into action. But every morning the trees are filled with birds singing thank-yous to the rising sun. There are cows and goats and chickens everywhere. We’ve seen groups of deer, a few beavers, and a black bear. Spring is just starting to gain momentum here; the daffodils are giving way to tulips and there are wildflowers in patches on the slopes by the road.
I miss the sensory parts of New York: bunuelos and tinto from the panaderia, the variety of dialects and accents on a single block, and the comfort of knowing that I can exist not only as an enigma, as something exotic, but as a part of a whole.
I miss my family, too. I call them regularly and send pictures. They’re happy for me, happy that I am seeking out new experiences with Julian and living life with curiosity. I feel happier, too. My body is healing. I’ve been sleeping regularly and waking up slowly. Yesterday we cleaned the garden of weeds and pests and got the beds ready for planting. I’m slowing down. Not from lethargy or boredom, but from the lack of being on and tuned in to everything. I can focus. I can write and draw and cook with intention and presence. I am remembering so many facets of my personality that were getting drowned out. I still struggle (who doesn’t) to feel like I know what I’m doing or where I’m heading, and my knees still buckle and ache, but now it feels like there’s more time and space to find solutions.
This isn’t home. In fact, I am reconciled to the belief that no place I settle in will feel that way. I live upstate, and my heart will always be out West, but sitting at the table with Julian, drinking coffee in the morning light, talking quietly about our hopes and dreams and fears; that feels like home.
