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Hello friend,
I've spent Christmases in warm deserts, country plains, and in cities and I have to admit..
The mountains own the winter.
I grew up in a valley in West Virginia and, frankly, I don't often crave the solace of the hometown in which my family still resides. Sometimes I ache for it, but it's a place I've accepted I grew out of as soon as I moved away. I never fit properly when I came back. My college town feels the same - I just don't belong there anymore. But winter makes me miss small town life.
There's something comforting about being in the mountains; the isolation of those small skies. The mountains envelop you. They keep the city close to you and the clouds just above your head (I could talk about this for hours - the skies are all I thought about for months after I moved to Texas - those big, open skies and the sunsets that seem to happen right at eye level instead of on a mountain range). And even noise sounds different in a valley when the world is covered in snow. That is where Christmas belongs, in my mind. My favorite holiday and the best reason to return home I can imagine.
After a month of renovations and broken things being fixed, we moved into our new home a week ago. Our new home feels like all the things I love about my hometown. It's a bit secluded (it's just a short drive out of the city of Baltimore) and a tunnel of trees marks the drive up to our neighborhood. Around the house, there are mossy rocks and the sun sets in through the leaves of trees sending spotlights of light whirling around the yard until dusk, instead of crashing into the jagged cityscape. I feel like our home put a bit of me that was missing back into place. I belong here. And I love it because... it reminds me of Christmas, even when it isn't.
So here's to December. To visiting places you may never fit again or places that complete you like a puzzle. And thank you for reading, dear friend. I have a few more things I would like to share with you.
- Nessa
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