I usually begin this story with the trees. Colorado trees are very thin, you can see for miles, yadda yadda yadda.
But not today. Today, I want to start with the lava.
When we were very young, my brother and I pretended that our backyard swing set was surrounded by lava. We would take turns crawling halfway down the slide (volcano), rolling onto our stomachs and reaching for the other kid at the top of the slide (lime green volcano, actually). We’d then hold on to each other until somebody’s arms gave out, and one (or sometimes both) of us went careening into the grass (boiling hot lava) below. It was our favorite game, providing hours of entertainment and hysterical laughter.
That was the game we’d been playing, he at three years old and I at five, before a life-altering string of words came from my mother’s lips. “Well, kids, we’re moving to Colorado,” she said. Just like that.
Concerned, but too tired to speak, two questions remained frozen in my mouth: Where is Colorado? and When are we having lunch? In my limited experience, it was vastly more important that I had just saved my brother from an erupting volcano than the fact that we were to move. Oh, how little did I know; my mother’s seemingly innocuous declaration was to be the impetus for one of my greatest passions and was to shape my life in ways that I could never have imagined.
My family lived in a small town of 1,000 year-round residents, a place where everybody knew everybody (think Stars Hollow with less Dean and Jess drama). Our farmhouse sat majestically on the golf course, nested in the Western Mountains of Maine. The house was a full century old, unmasked by the frequent creaks, and we loved it. Harry Potter was there, too, living for years on a shelf in my closet, but that’s really another story.
Our town was a stark contrast to the city of Colorado Springs, which boasted approximately 400,000 people when we arrived in 2006. I found myself both bewildered and intrigued by the other eight houses on my new street.
In the end, it was while living on that street that I made my first “BFF,” took my first ballet/tap combo class and made innumerable other lifelong memories. It was there that I made up my mind to keep a journal of my experiences, which became more extensive by the day. By age seven, I had drafted an autobiography of my life and was keeping a daily journal of “firsts,” where I wrote brief memoirs (Where did I put that anyway…?). Through writing, I found purpose on both my best days and my worst. I suppose some things never change.
This is where the trees go.
They were short. They were flimsy. And after three years in what I failed to recognize, at the age of nine, as paradise, I wanted to return to the East Coast. I wanted to see the big trees that blocked out the sky. I wanted to be closer to my extended family. I wanted change, and my family did, too.
Bon Jovi says it best: “Who says you can’t go home?”
So, on that fateful Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009, we moved to Massachusetts. Journals in hand, I kept a close record of my adventures (I just wish I could find those journals!). For two years, I drifted between houses, and moving vans and storage units infested with mice. When my journals began to feel obsolete, I turned to fairytales (Check out my Princess Academy recommendation here.).
I spent a Christmas in my deceased great-grandfather’s house in Maine, where my useless palatal expander finally fell out (another very different story), and I was free to eat potato chips again. From there, my family spent nearly a year with my grandparents in both Maine and Pennsylvania before moving back to Massachusetts.
In hindsight, I made some wonderful friends in the Bay State… both times that I lived there. I distinctly remember long days of “survivor man,” and ice skating and driveway dance parties. I often miss deep talks in sunshiny forests, and neighborhood pool parties and baking for hours on end.
But for every moment of bliss, it seemed, there was a moment of heartache. I missed Colorado. I may have been born on the East Coast, but the Centennial State was my home. Something in my gut knew that without a shadow of a doubt. Guts are good like that.
And in 2011, at the age of 12 and with my wanderlust at rock bottom, my family returned to Colorado Springs. That’s when I embarked on my first full-length novel. Though fantasy fiction, the story encompassed my feelings of rootlessness and confusion, all ending happily ever after, as fairytales should. All of my writing and day-to-day living is heavily influenced by the world–and, more importantly, the people–around me. I like “experiences” better than I like “change.” The five-year-old Aquinnah Bree had an extensive imagination but lacked the life experience necessary to create a believable fantasy. Without my adventures, I may never have come to know the value of those imaginings. There is an indescribable satisfaction that comes with writing stories that appeal to and live within others. That is the beauty of words.
For a while, I was just happy to be back, despite the infinite number of things that had changed around me. After all, I had changed, too. The rootlessness reared its stubborn head when the moving didn’t end.
After the second consecutive in-state move, I decided that I did not need any more change. I had enough under my belt, had lived in more houses, in more states than most people do in a lifetime. The excitement of new and different had been completely drained out of me. I just wanted to stay somewhere. Forever. In fact, maybe my life would’ve been easier if my family had never left Maine at all.
If you have ever met me, you know that the following sentence is not so much a plot twist as it is a sorely predictable development: I am about to move for the twelfth time in 17 years (T-13 days, actually).
Here is what I know to be true: change is inevitable. I may not always like it, but I do believe that my widespread experiences have molded me into the writer that I am today. It birthed my characters and their world! I have developed a deeply rooted appreciation for a good fairytale and for the kindred spirits in my life. And while I do, one day, plan to settle down with my own family and stay planted forever (more than five years would be good), if I was six years old again, and if I was given a choice, I still wouldn’t stay in a tiny town of 1,000 year-round residents.
I would want to be exactly where I am, letting you know that going is not always easy, and sometimes, it just isn’t right, but when it is, you’ll know it. The best stories are the ones that move you. Let it happen.
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