November 4,  2009

I have come home to Ocracoke after a 2 1/2 -year absence -- what one person called a sabbatical. What do I mean when I say that? What exactly is “home,” and how does one go about going there?

I began the process in May, when I learned that my older sister in Virginia was ill. I made the decision to return from the Southwest, told my friends there that I would be leaving, and pulled out pictures of my Ocracoke cottage, Marsh Haven, for me and them to look at. I sent notes to my Ocracoke friends saying that I would see them soon.

I was on the road for six weeks, stopping in Virginia for a while and arriving here on Sept. 15. I have been here for almost two months, yet I have only recently completed the journey.

When I left Ocracoke in the spring of 2007, bound for New Mexico, I had a new home waiting for me. This home was included as part of a job managing the Piedre Lumbre Education and Visitor Center at Ghost Ranch, near the pueblo of Abiquiu.

I had applied for the job with three warnings. First, I did not want a long-term commitment. Second, I would be bringing with me two dogs and a cat. And third, I hated computers.

The result was perfect--an eight-month contract, an old adobe house with fenced yard where I could have my pets, and minimal time sitting before a computer screen.

My new home was in Georgia O’Keefe country. I could see her former residence from my doorway if I used binoculars. My backyard was the spectacular scenery she depicted in her paintings. I furnished my little house with Ghost Ranch leftovers and odds and ends that I picked up at thrift shops, reflecting the bright colors of the cliffs and sky I saw around me. I planted some flowers in the yard and set out bird feeders for the hummingbirds and finches. Before long it felt like home.

When my contract ended in October, 2007 and the center closed for the winter, I reluctantly bade farewell to the life I had created there, hating to leave but eager to find out what might come next. I had no idea where my next home might be, but I trusted fate and soon found myself moving into a lovely and well-furnished adobe casita in downtown Santa Fe.

Located in the historic district, it was within walking distance of museums, the plaza, and other amenities. Once again, there was a time frame. I could stay for four months, until tourist season made it more profitable for the owner to rent on a weekly basis. I took a job at a preschool, made some new friends, and did my best to make Santa Fe feel like home.

I left Santa Fe in March, 2008, driving southwest to Tucson, Ariz. I planned to visit relatives there and then go to Colorado, where I wanted to try living off the grid on a little piece of land I own there.

I never made it.

Late April found me moving into a house in Patagonia, just north of the Mexican border. Though I did not know it, Patagonia was to be “home” for the next year and a half. My great-grandparents had been among the first Anglo settlers there. So family ties, an intriguing research project about my ancestors, a job writing a column for a Nogales newspaper, and a gig caretaking a 1,500-acre ranch made Patagonia feel like home for sure. Riding the range on my horse, Brown, checking fences and looking for lost calves, I felt as “western” as an eastern-born woman might hope for.

Yet Ocracoke continued to be home as well. I always knew I would come back, and when my sister became ill, I tied up the last loose ends of my Arizona commitments and made plans to head back east.

This was not, however, the last of my emotional engagements with what "home"  means. I decided to take a long route back, driving north to Flagstaff, where I had lived and attended graduate school from 1988 to 1990. I spent a week there, reconnecting with friends and visiting my old haunts -- trying to see how it would feel to live there again. It felt great, and I knew that northern Arizona was still home to a part of my heart.

Then I had a heartwarming reunion with my Havasupai Indian friends at Grand Canyon. I had lived and taught on their reservation at the bottom of the canyon for three years, a wonderful experience that I treasure. They asked me why I didn't come home to stay. I told them I would love to, and it was true.

But I had farther to go, both in distance and in time. I was bound for Gate, Wash., a tiny village nestled between the Cascade Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, which had been my home from 1978 to 1983. My former husband, Pete, and I had had a farm there, an idyllic little spot on the Black River, where we kept horses, cows, chickens, turtle doves, bees, you name it.

Leaving there after we split up had been heartbreaking. Not only had I left part of my heart there, but I also left all of my belongings. Yep. Everything I had owned, from childhood until my divorce, was packed into a storage unit, awaiting my return. Now, 26-six years later, I decided it was time to go back.

Once again, I revisited old haunts and friends, remembering how much I had loved my home there. I spent a day or so driving around, dreaming of finding another little farm that I might buy. Slowly I went through all the memories packed into the storage unit, and regretfully set aside piles of things I would have to give or throw away. Others I packed into my already crowded pickup truck to bring back to Ocracoke. It was time to head east -- first to Virginia, and then to Ocracoke.  

Driving down the long island corridor of the Outer Banks, I was surprised to see so many new shops and rental houses. I had thought that, because of the economy and housing crunch, development would have slowed. Nope! The distance between villages had shrunk, with fewer stretches of saltmarsh and more rows of saltboxes.  I was also a little shocked and dismayed to come across high water warnings along the highway, as it was a sunny day with no wind. The ever-encroaching ocean was threatening to engulf Highway 12, reminding me of the hazards of living on an island.

Another surprise was the length of the ferry lines. The island was obviously still a popular destination, even with summer season over. I took a quick drive around town before going to my house.

Not a whole lot of change had taken place in the village, at least not visibly.  Several new houses brought up the same puzzlement I always feel when I see such construction -- why so big? Why so ostentatious? What happened to the simple lifestyle people used to love at Ocracoke? 

Finally I pulled up at my own gate, walked up the steps of my porch, and sat down in my living room.

I was home.

Or was I? It was not that simple.

Island friends welcomed me back, but in some ways I felt like a stranger. Where did my Arizona cowboy hat and boots fit in here? What about my Washington farm milking boots? My Havasupai Indian baskets? Where, for that matter, did I fit in?

Several businesses had changed hands since I had left, and some had disappeared. A new pizza house adorned the side of the highway as I drove in. Another restaurant had opened its doors and closed them again in the time I was gone, and others had changed hands.

The Community Store had, as I knew, been remodeled and reopened after several years of dormancy. That was a welcome sight! So was the Ocracoke fish house, newly refurbished and expected to continue as a viable Ocracoke business. At the end of the Community Store dock, in a building formerly occupied by Annabelle’s Florist, was a new museum about Ocracoke's fishing culture, and the office of the recently created Ocracoke Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping finance worthwhile island projects.       

Not noticeable at first glance, but significant to the community were plans, fueled by grant monies, for a new firehouse and a radio station. The ground had been cleared for the firehouse, and one of the Anchorage Inn bungalows was now set up as a radio studio where WOVV would do recording, production, and programming.

The Berkeley Center, an Ocracoke treasure that those who loved the island had been trying to preserve as a public institution, had been sold. While the changes were not immediately noticeable, many of the old oaks had been cut down to make room for condos.

Not so easy to spot but more disturbing to me than the things I saw at Ocracoke were the things that I did not see. This included a number of old familiar faces --“Hoagie” Hoggard, Fowler O'Neal, Roy Parsons, Muzel Bryant, among others. It also included some of the island residents I loved the most--the green tree frogs and Fowlers toads. I was not the only one to notice their absence. Several of my friends expressed their concern. The green and brown anoles still scamper along fences, however, the fiddler crabs still gather in the mud flats, and the pelicans still swoop in formation above the ocean waves.

Starting a new job at Tradewinds Tackle, an old island institution, helps make me feel more grounded, as did starting back at my old job writing for Irene Nolan, editor of the Island Free Press.

It was an unexpected greeting from an old acquaintance, however, that really made me feel that I was home.

It happened just a few days ago, in late October, when I opened my gate to take my dogs for a walk. There, standing just a few feet away, was Sir-Poop-a-lot, the cormorant I had rescued three years before.

For those of you who read my earlier articles may remember that the injured cormorant had, after I released it, continued to come back, following me on my bicycle and waiting hopefully at my gate.

Sir-Poop-a-Lot, named by my friend Leonard for obvious reasons, having just migrated south for the winter, had stopped by for a visit -- or more likely a fish handout.

 I was tempted to give him one of the fillets of spot I was planning for dinner, but my better judgment and my training as a wildlife rehabilitator convinced me otherwise. I ignored him, hoping he would fly back to his feathered friends, and eventually he did.

Still, it was great to have him stop by. It let me know that I was home.

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