Homesick

The first tinges of orange are just touching the leaves as I drive into Cupertino. Around the library, a few trees are trying halfheartedly to remind Californians that winter is coming. Their little golden leaves flicker and fade into an endless expanse of evergreens. As I climb out of my car, I’m greeted by the soft October breeze. It’s 65 degrees at home.

In my first year at Iowa, I couldn’t wrap my head around summer rainstorms. Back home rain was something saved for cold days and special occasions. We’d bundle up under blankets and watch with glee as it tumbled over our windows. Rain meant jeans and sweatshirts and turning the heat on before you got in the car. Iowa didn’t seem to understand that. On the day I moved into my freshman dorm, the heat hung wet and heavy. Steely gray clouds gathered overhead, their rolling darkness feeling almost threatening. As we pulled the last box from the car my dad smiled up at the sky. “We might get a thunderstorm,” he told me.

My family moved away from Cupertino the summer after I graduated high school. It had gotten too busy, they said. Their new house was in Sebastopol, a tiny town two hours and eleven minutes away from the home I grew up in. Everything about Sebastopol seemed to meander. People would stop to chat with you on the street. The shops in the Barlow closed at noon. The big stoplight in town would flicker red in every direction, sure the traffic had nowhere better to be. In the passenger seat next to me, my mom says it’s soothing to move at a slower pace. I drum my fingers against the steering wheel, waiting for the light to turn green.

Lawrence Expressway is the best road in the entire United States. When I tell my friend Kay this, he nods in agreement. “It’s the first road Cupertino kids get to drive fast on,” he explains. But it’s not just that. I can tell you every exit off of Lawrence. Want to get to my old elementary school? Take Miller to Lawrence to Prospect. Need a slice from my favorite pizza place? Take Stevens Creek to De Anza to Lawerence to Prune Ridge. Want to get to Kay’s house? Pacifica to Blaney to Lawrence to Rainbow. I used to joke that I could drive Cupertino with my eyes closed.

I made it three weeks into my freshman year before I looked up UC transfer deadlines. It was September and the humidity was suffocating. “When I walk outside, I feel like I can’t take a full breath,” I tell my mom on the phone. I’ve never lived in wet heat before. It feels like a perversion. One month leaks into the next and I wait for the pit in my stomach to go away. On my way to class, I think I see my friend Keren on the main walkway. It’s not her. Because why would she be in the middle of Iowa? The pit grows bigger.

In Sebastopol, they light fireworks on the 3rd of July. My family finds this charming. I think it’s foolish. In a month or two, the sky here will turn an ugly orange as smoke from Gurnseville rolls in. October in Sebastopol is bad for your lungs. During my sophomore year, the air quality gets so bad they cancel my brother’s classes. “They never had to cancel classes at Tino because of the fires,” I tell my mom. She sighs into the phone. “It’s gotten worse everywhere since you left,” she tells me. “He’d still have a smoke day if he was in Cupertino.”

I never had to say the words “I’m from Cupertino” until I left. They felt strange the first time they came out of my mouth. For the first eighteen years of my life, I’d coasted along in the comfort of familiarity. I’d thought that common ground was stifling. I craved a change of scenery, of culture, of perspective. But Iowa just made me ache for Cupertino. I missed sitting under the soft yellow lights of Main Street, wandering the streets without anxiously checking my maps, telling stories that didn’t require pause after pause of explanation. It wasn’t until I left home that I learned you could crave commonality.

The thunderstorms were the first things I learned to love about Iowa. We don’t get them back home and even when we do, they carry with them the threat of dry grass and smoke-filled skies. But here the storms are carefree and elegant. On summer nights I like to make a bag of popcorn, sit on my couch, and watch the lightning dance across the sky. When I tell my mom about the thunderstorms she laughs. “I used to do the exact same thing when I lived in Miami,” she tells me. “You just don’t get good storms like that in California.”

My parent’s house in Sebastopol has always felt temporary. I can never remember where the teacups go. There are boxes in the back of my closet that I still haven’t unpacked. The spare room remains undecorated despite my mom’s consistent hints. When I’m sent home from school in the middle of my sophomore year, I think Sebastopol will still be temporary. But slowly March falls into July, then into September. As the air grows cold I wait for the leaves to change.

When people ask me my favorite season I always tell them California summer, Iowa fall. I’m surprised how much it hurts when I realize I’ll miss it this year. I long for the red brick buildings, for the endless open sky. Even the icy bite of winter wind would be a welcome reminder of home.

It took three hundred and fifty-four days before I could book my ticket back to Iowa. The week before I’m scheduled to leave, I talk my parents into letting me out of our tightly sealed bubble so I can drive back to Cupertino one last time. I leave my car in the library parking lot and walk through the park until I can see my old house. There’s a new minivan parked in the driveway. A little kid’s bike rests against the front porch and a soccer net sits where our basketball hoop used to be. It’s a strange feeling when you realize a place can let go of you before you’re ready to let go of it.

As I climb back in my car I realize I can’t remember how to get to Kay’s house from here. I smile slightly as I type his address into my maps. The voice of my Siri bursts out of my speakers. “Take Pacifica to Blaney to…”

When I call my mom to book a flight home the summer after my junior year I’ve only been back in Iowa for three months. “We were worried after a year ‘stuck’ here you’d be sick of us,” my mom says, only half-joking.

I’ve settled comfortably back into my midwestern life. When people ask about my year away, I tell them how grateful I am to be back. I don’t tell them how much I already miss the warm October breeze or the lazy traffic light that never turns green.

On the phone, my mom and I talk through travel dates. “I can fly home to you guys on the 13th,” I tell her. “Then I want to drive back home to Cupertino on the 15th. Keren said I could stay with her. That would mean I have seven days to be with you guys before I fly back home to Iowa.” My mom laughs on the other side of the phone.

“You’re pretty loose with the word home these days, huh?”

I grin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her.