The winds of winter penetrate the thin jacket that tries to protect me, and I remember how much I miss the warmth of home. Home. A picture-perfect image of Florida in the summer: stifling, humid air that chokes me after five minutes, oppressive voices that whisper to me in my sleep, freedom constraining my every thought and action. Home.
I have reached it, Mrs. Roadstead’s house. Rushing up the steps of her porch, I open the door and am enveloped with warm air, and I breathe a sigh of relief at having successfully escaped.
“Hello, dear. You are a bit late tonight, dinner is wrapped and on the dining table,” commented Mrs. Roadstead while helping me in divesting myself of my coat, scarf, and gloves.
“Yes, I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t wait too long to eat dinner. I wanted to finish some research at the library,” I replied.
“Ah, always the conscientious worker, you are. Come now, eat, and warm yourself up. Don’t want to get sick.”
We both walked to the table, and Mrs. Roadstead sat with me while I ate my dinner. She insisted on keeping me company, worried that I was too quiet, too solitary, too far from home. I spoke little of home, and Mrs. Roadstead thought it was because I missed it. It was easier to let her believe this than to shatter the images she had created of my background. I cannot quite remember where I met her, or why she had taken me in and kept me as a boarder. I know only that I am here, and for now, it is enough to be here.
“How does your research go?” she inquired.
“It is slow, but I am finding the most needed sources, which is good.”
She nodded her head and was about to ask more questions when I signaled that I had finished dinner and wished to go to bed. Mrs. Roadstead had grown accustomed to my desire to be alone at night and understood that I needed some space. I tried my best to be a companion at times to her, since I sensed that she was a bit lonely, having lost her husband just a couple of years ago.
I stood up, thanking her as I always did for dinner and her generosity. She waves it off, replying it is her pleasure, and I truly believe it is. I carry the dishes to the kitchen contrary to her protests. She tells me to go and relax and this time, I listen.
Upstairs, I lie down with the lights off. And I think. The instant I lie down, thoughts of home flood my mind. My mind starts racing. Sounds loud, voices bustling, uncomprehendable, distorted…I can’t make anything out. I can’t understand. I can’t escape these voices. I do not know where they are from, I do not know how to rid myself of them, I do not remember being able to live without them. Clouding my mind, ripping apart my brain one piece at a time, these voices, these thoughts.
And I can’t breathe.
I jump up, finding myself gasping for air, breathing deeply and exhaling slowly, trying to calm myself. I stare out my window—it is black outside and, had it not been for the streetlight, I would not have been able to see anything. I stared out my bedroom window, stared blankly, stared at the sliced moon that mirrored the streetlight, stared at the trees that lined the street, stared at their branches, and quieted my mind.
I suddenly had the urge to take a walk. I glanced at my alarm clock. 9:47. Mrs. Roadstead would certainly object to a walk at this hour especially in this weather. I threw on another sweater and went downstairs and found Mrs. Roadstead watching television.
She turned towards me and asked, “Not asleep, dear?”
“No, not quite. I was actually planning on taking a short walk.”
“Right now? I would not suggest it. It’s far too cold out.”
“I am bundled up, though, and I won’t be long at all. 10, 15 minutes max,” I replied with a smile. She continued shaking her head as I grabbed my jacket from the closet and hurried out the door. She understood that nothing would have stopped me if my mind were set on going out. Walking out of the house, I was silently grateful that Mrs. Roadstead knew just how much to push and that I could make my own decisions. After having to fight for the ability to make my own choice and then having to defend every decision I had made, being in the presence of someone who trusted my own judgment regarding my life was a luxury that I never forgot.
The cold air revived me, reminding me instantly that I was no longer in the warmth and protection of Mrs. Roadstead’s house. I smiled despite the cold, breathing in deeply the crisp New England air. I walked to the nearby park and delighted in the crunching of the dried leaves under my boots.
The feel of the changing season was invigorating to me—the newness of the New England area captivated me. Everything about the area was a novelty: the people, the homes, the cities, the roads, the trees, the land. Four months ago, I landed in Massachusetts. I was not quite sure what I was doing here or how I got here. I was running, that is what I remember. Running from familiar places, running from familiar faces, running from familiarity. Running from home. I was tired of being surrounded by that which I knew.
So I found a place I did not know, a place where I could forget everything and everyone I had known, a place where I could find myself without the constraints of familiarity.
I found New England.
And then, I started searching. I acquired a part-time job at the local library and found myself spending most of my time there, wandering the stacks and reading incessantly, as though I needed the words on the page just to survive. I roamed the library, haunting it, trying to find something, but I did not know what. I only knew that I was not at peace; there was an urgent need to find…something—an entity or a form so completely obscure and unknown to me. I reached the park and sit down on a park bench, leaning my head back so I could see the sky. Thick oak trees filled the park and between their knotted, empty branches, I saw the dim light of the stars above. Breathing deeply the cold air and straining to see the stars between the tree branches, I felt safe and hidden.
After a few minutes, I stood to leave. I knew that if I were gone any longer, Mrs. Roadstead would begin to worry. I walked back, exhaling often so that I could see my breath in the air before me. I smiled at my attempt to make my breath into donut holes, and I reached the house sooner than I thought I would.
