this must be the place

on the search & discovery of home.

dear friend,

I’m a little afraid to say it aloud. I’ve only been announcing it in whispers, through the muffle of cupped hands, always followed by a knock on wood or a check to see who’s listening.

I’m happy.

I’m (very) happy and inside me live two wolves: one of which is waiting for the other shoe to drop, sure that if I speak too loudly, the universe will hear and swiftly correct things; leveling me back to my knees. The second, of course, chants Mary Oliver’s wisdom, “joy was not made to be a crumb.” And I know it’s true. I don’t expect this happiness to cement in place and be my constant state of being, but I also know much of this joy is the fruit of hard work that should be celebrated. I want to be able to be happy for myself. However… (see first wolf).

I’ve pined and yearned and written, ad nauseam, about one day finding home – in any/every form it might come in. A vessel for traditions and memories, actual walls and floors, or simply finding a place I loved enough to grow roots in. A sanctuary. A place to act as haven, art studio, and meeting spot. A place I could protect and feel protected in, where its calm was in my control. A place I could hammer and paint and prune and harvest. A place the dog and I could fall asleep wherever we chose and it’d be right, no matter where we laid our heads.

There haven’t been many places I felt at home in, so it’s been a long game of detective, trying on new zip codes for size, hoping to one day be able to give myself the resting space I’ve dreamed of.

This vision has worn so many faces, has changed direction throughout my life, but in all my thirty-one years and miles spent moving, struggled to find fertile soil. As a teenager, my high school boyfriend and I joked about moving to Australia together and opening up a pancake house. In college, it was an open road or any education program that would take me: Alaska, New Mexico, Canada, Thailand, India. I’d drive buses, farm for a roof over my head, or teach somewhere on the other side of the horizon.

There are several states I’ve lived in throughout the search for it, among them: New York, New Jersey, Idaho, Utah, California, and Oregon. Though I couldn’t stay with them, they have all found a way to stay with me. The morning marine layer. Suburban secret kissing spots. Balsam fir and bacon grease. Sagebrush and the widest skies I’ve ever seen.

After college in Idaho, my ex-husband and I moved to Portland, OR. We lived together for two years, then I blazed a new trail for myself there for three years following our divorce. Oregon made a lot of sense as far as where I thought my road would end. The state has every setting I could dream of: city, countryside, old-growth forests, mountains, high desert, and ocean. It has the elements I wanted in a future home: adventure, nature, creative inspiration, progressive ideals, and even the beginnings of a community. Rugged wilderness, stormy mystery, endless corner coffee spots, and a great public transportation system. (Don’t listen to anyone who might say otherwise.)

And after those important and beautiful three years, I could feel the state warp like heated cellophane, shrinking me breathless. I loved Portland. I loved Oregon, but my spirits were waterlogged. I was getting eroded to the bone by rain. I wanted quiet. I wanted a flat horizon and a yard that wouldn’t claim my entire paycheck. I wanted to be challenged. I was itching for anything else, but where?

My close friend and roommate at the time felt the same, and, unmoored by jobs or family, we made a long list of places we envisioned ourselves. Though you may not believe me, when you can go anywhere, that expansive freedom teeters on overwhelming. Colorado. Washington. Minnesota. North Carolina. Maine. West Virginia. Vermont.

For months, we chipped away at cities and states, eliminating what we could compromise on. Washington might be much of the same. Colorado would price us out again. Maine was a long jump from one coast to the other, and we were already cashing in a lot of bravery. We could handle not being around big mountains, but needed the trees. Bodies of water. Not a city, but a college town, maybe. With adventure. And places to escape for time in the city or solitude.

In perhaps an insane decision, in May 2023, we packed up our cars and moved across the country to Ann Arbor, Michigan, despite never having visited.

I remember driving under the sign on the highway, Welcome to Pure Michigan, and watching the trees beyond the guardrail ripple green-blue in a lush gust of wind, like a flat rock had been skipped across its surface.

Within months, I could feel my shoulders settle.

While Oregon was undoubtedly gorgeous, its features felt conspicuous. Of course staring out at a snowcapped mountain would leave you awestruck. A forest, crystallized in raindrops. The stag sign, lit and sparkling in the reflection of the Willamette River. It was beautiful, yes, but obvious.

During my first year in Michigan, I felt drawn to the bare brown farming fields, scratched skeletal by snow and fog. I hiked up sand dunes instead of mountains. I made friends. I took myself out exploring. The snow threatened to bury me in my apartment. Our power went out all too frequently. For the first time, I fell in love with winter.

What few things I knew about Michigan before moving here, or the Midwest at all for that matter, is that those who love it, love it hard. I was once told, “Midwesterners who leave either slowly make their way back home or fight the lifelong urge to.”

There was somewhat of a culture shock. How frequently a small exchange in passing built to a deeper conversation about family, interests, and place, then realizing an hour had gone by. There’s a real listening here. A sincere curiosity in getting to know each other. An earnestness that isn’t simple in terms of plain, but simple as in “we could have our differences, we could have our similarities, but when winter comes and you need anything, give me a call.”

Many Michiganders I’ve met here, from all fields and walks of life, seem to exist in conversation with their surroundings. They know the history, the seasonal cycles, how cultures may shift from the state’s pinky finger to thumb, even the flurried tantrums of where they live, to a T.

While I’m still a green transplant, I’m starting to get a taste of why—hard as it is to describe. The red-winged blackbirds, the end-of-summer county fairs, the loose and jovial Midwestern lilt, the shared early dawns when every house on the street goes to scrape ice off their windshields, the local pride, the near imperceptible shift in altitude from small towns and sprawling country fields to treelined hills, dunes, and lakes, felt only by a yawn and an ear pop.

Last year, a new job brought me over to the western coast of the state, in an apartment to myself, and the feeling of being a somewhat-newborn started over for what felt like the hundredth time.

This go at it, however, even more short-lived than the last. Within a few months, I had set up weekly writing nights with one new friend and craft nights with another. Working in-person again meant stopping by between assignments to gab and laugh and catch up; getting to know people outside of Zoom calls and going for beers after work. My partner and his family opened up even more pockets of the most kindhearted friendly faces, happy to take hikes, have movie nights, and prowl record stores.

At my apartment, I fell into a wholesome routine. I’d walk my dog around cross-streets and loved the fact that neighborhood kids made him a small celebrity. Sit outside with a bowl of fruit to write. In winter’s early evenings, I’ll flick on the fake fireplace and cook long meals. At night, the dog jumps up between my partner and I, and we read, play games, or talk for an hour or so, rubbing the soft silk of his puppy ears before all of our eyes grow heavy.

The days pass, and I forget to crane an ear for the other shoe to drop. Once or twice, I’ve watched a shooting star flash across the night sky from my balcony. I’ve left work half an hour late, lost in good conversation with coworkers. I’ve caught myself, for the first time, noticing a shift in my thoughts:

no longer “my life could happen here. I could make it work,” but “I see my life taking place here. I want to do everything I can to stay.”

There are moments Michigan reminds me of how much I love upstate New York—the greenery, the adventure, the weather-hardened locals whose hearts are wise and soft—but that sense of familiarity is then met with finding something new I haven’t experienced. Michigan has an outline of home I recognize, yes, but the rooms, the colors, are different than how I imagined.

I feel in bloom. I feel I’m building something. Maybe not a future altogether stumbled upon as I had thought, but a shared work between good bones and ready hands. I’ve been teary. I’ve been joyous and scared. Don’t tell anyone, but I think I’ve found it. And now that I have, why does the having feel so nerve-racking? A voice in my daydreams has hardened, daring me to act on it.

It seems as one search ends, another begins…

A sanctuary. Four walls and a chimney. A garden and my fingernails, black with soil. Paint and windowpanes. Sweat and grout. The dog savoring the yard I’ve always hoped to give him. Years that pass, chasing rabbits out of the spinach, beers clinked together by the water, and failing to learn euchre for the eighth time. Birthday parties and ski lessons and trips up north.

On a drive home, with my partner in the passenger seat and my dog in the backseat, wet from swimming, I watched the switchgrass dance in gold waves. A thick band of storm loomed north, in no rush to chase out the sun. The smell of rain to come whipped in from the windows. Jays swooped between the trees, glinting sapphire. There was no one beautiful thing to point to, but the whole scene.

I do want a home here, a life here. If it will have me.

Thanks for listening.

with love,
schuyler (sky-ler)
four walls and a chimney fund (venmo): schuylerpeck

If you’re interested in supporting my writing or reading more:
book link 1: The Ghosts’ Share of Rent
book link 2: You Look Like Hell
book link 3: To Hold Your Moss-Covered Heart
instagram: hiitssky