The Garden That Called Me Home

The long journey to belonging—memory and the living language of plants

My dad used to joke that I was a nomad—he said I came by it honestly because we come from nomadic Arctic people. But I’d continued the habit of moving that had been inadvertently set while I was growing up.

This morning I was missing my dad and thinking about all the times he was transferred for work, and how hard it must have been for him and my mother to uproot their family, find a new home, and make new connections.

The constant uprooting in my childhood made it challenging for me to stay in one place for long as an adult. Six elementary schools taught me to make friends quickly, but I never felt like I belonged. I continued this pattern well into adulthood. When I meet people who grew up in military families, it’s like I’m meeting kin—even though we weren’t a family in service.

I’m the first generation not born to the land of my ancestors, and I have always felt a keening for a place I didn’t know. Perhaps some genetic echo—the deep memory of a place in nature that had sheltered my family—was still calling out to me. The place where the stones, the trees, the water, the plants, the animals in my ancestral lands hold and carry the memories of my people.

Yes, I’ve found places here that called to my heart, but I never stayed long enough to really belong.

Recently, I dropped my granddaughter off at her school bus, and when I got home, I entered the farm through the garden I designed and planted nearly 10 years ago.

Although I’m an environmental artist and designer and have always grown plants, I’d never designed a garden before. It was an act that fully engaged my heart and creativity. Here at Alchemy Farm, I’ve learned the language of plants—their secret Latin names like spells to cast upon the breeze, the secrets to shepherding them to grow.

I stopped in awe at the garden entrance. The cherry tree glowed in the sunrise. It called out to my heart, its being filled with light, its fragrance beautifying the air, inviting bees and hummingbirds. It was whispering to me that I was home.

Home amongst my plants, the bees, the earth—this place I love. Home in a place that now shelters my family. A place where the trees, the rocks, the birds, the small creatures, the water, the earth, the plants, know me—have adopted me. I’ve been transplanted and finally taken deep root.