A Trip Home

I came home this weekend.  I’m not normally one of those people who does the whole “I live in the best place in the world, and everywhere else sucks” thing because hey, I’ve been to quite a few non-sucky places in just my limited experience.  But I am going to say this.  While there may be any number of places in the world that are just as amazing as the Grande Ronde Valley, I would say that there is not a single place that is better. 

As I crossed the border into my valley I rolled my window down so that I could breathe in the smell of home.  It was literally as though a light, fresh perfume was wafting through my window.  The air smelled so sweet I couldn’t stop gulping one huge breath after another.  There was no smell of car exhaust, no smoke or dust.  It had just rained, so the only smell was that wet, fresh, clean scent of earth and plants and air and life.  The last 40 minutes of my drive were pure heaven…

As I stepped out of the car and looked around me at the still-wet landscape, breathing in that life-renewing air, I felt myself unwrinkle.  5 hours in a car, a week sleeping on a friend’s couch, two years living in college housing, all of it flaked away like dried mud.  I couldn’t bear the thought of going inside yet.

I happened to arrive just during those magical last few hours of sunlight when the entire world looks unrealistically beautiful.  I don’t know what it is about that sinking western light that gives every tree, chicken, and old car a thin sheen of gold.  It almost seems corporeal; sunlight pouring through leaves like a thick syrup, pooling and soaking them with warmth.  When lit by that light, everything looks precious and beautiful[i].

As I walked down streets I’d walked down hundreds of times in my childhood I felt like everything around me was hyper saturated in color.  The lingering drops of the rain glistened on leaves so green I doubted either their reality or the honesty of my eyes.  I think I saw every possible shade of green today.  Bright yellow-greens like sour candy for the eyes.  Leaves that flash silver in the breeze like dropped coins.  Deep golden greens that shimmer luxuriously.  The secrets of the soft, muted blue-greens tease the corners of your eye.  Solid walls of green; dappled greens bordered in the pure blue sky; shady, shifting unstable greens.  Punctuating this sea of greens is the soft lace of lilac blossoms, peonies exploding in such a delicious red that my mouth starts to water, and innocent, pink tulips.  You get a little drunk as your eyes devour such sights.

Periodically I would close my eyes—blocking out the glut of colors—to try and penetrate the chaos of sound woven into it all.  The crunch of my shoes on the gravel roads keeps snatching my attention so I stop moving altogether.  There, on the last block, is a sheep calling over and over again “Daaaaaaaad!  DaaaaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaad!  Daaad!............DAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaad!”  No demanding child could be as persistent.  Now and then I hear the hum of a car driving past on Main Street.  The cacophony of birds delivering their evening monologues for the benefit of an indifferent world.  It demands a moment of effort to pick out the tapestry of sound into individual voices.  There’s one…two…four…six… nine…I lose count…I know I’m hearing more birds in these few minutes than I’ve heard in two years in Provo.  Performing in counterpoint, the chirping of crickets comes from every direction.  Rushing under it all, blunting the sharpness is the endless shush of Catherine Creek.  And then, best of all, drifting like smoke on the air is the ethereal wail and hum of the train across the valley at the foot of the mountain.  It is the sound that has lulled me to sleep since I was 9 years old and I cannot think of anything more comforting. 

I have a love affair with trees.  And Union is full of them.  There is a particular tree that rules this town, at least one on every street, usually more.  This time of year it is overflowing with thousands of delicate pink and white blossoms jostling for space amongst thick drooping green leaves.  Other trees have yet to gain their foliage and the black starkness of their limbs stands out against the lush abundance of their brethren like black strokes on a blank white page.  Studying the random intricacy of these leafless branches, so distinctive and severe, is a drug I can’t resist.  The lines of these branches were formed at random, and yet their curves, turns, and points are more graceful to me than any piece of art I’ve ever seen.  The soaring uprightness of a pine or an oak fills me with an unexplainable awe, while the stooping curves of a weeping willow abide by their name and inspire melancholy.  The subtle and the obvious differences between each individual tree and each separate type of tree fascinate me.  I believe there must be a tree growing in my soul. 

Sadly, even this overly wordy missive fails to capture the full essence of my home town.  I’ve only touched on the very beginnings of what could be said.  I’ve not mentioned the buildings that fill the town, or the feeling that suffuses it.  I haven’t even thought about the people who make it what it is.  Not to mention, this is a portrait drawn strictly to please.  Needless to say, there are many flaws glossed over, many problems idealized into non-existence.  And yet I can’t say that I have written anything here that isn’t completely true, at least to my experience this afternoon.  So I give it to you, my reader, and leave you to come to your own conclusions.

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[i] Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died about 5 blocks into my walk.  This was a tragedy.  Eventually I turned to the limited camera in my phone.