Seminal Geography

The major periods of my life have all been begun by a move eastward. Growth in High School was interrupted by a move east to Provo for College and eventually graduate school, then that period closed by a move east to New York City. In terms of personal development, I can trace myself maturing eastward across the continent. As I write this I am in San Diego, and I realized last night as I drove home from the wedding of a close high school friend, that my vacation this year has retraced the steps of my eastward migration, and in doing so helped me revisit lost versions of myself.

The funny thing about old friends is that they have a way of treating you as the person you once were, and this makes it easier to fall into the attitudes, even the mannerisms, that defined you in those times. When I went back to Provo this summer, I did so without a real purpose. It’s not the first time I’ve revisited Provo and it won’t be the last, but the days without a clear goal gave me time to reflect on the place. One day I was up on BYU campus doing some random errand and in Ten minutes I ran into four people who were relatively close friends around 2004 but who I haven’t kept in close contact with. I chatted with all of them and by the tenor of their questions I was able to see some of the ways I have changed from the person I was in 2004. That day put me in a reflective mood, and I spent the rest of my time in Provo noticing emotionally important places as I drove or walked past them. Apartments where I had lived, street corners where I had had meaningful discussions, places I had taken girls on dates, Streets I had run down in happiness, and others I had walked down in insecurity and pain. It seemed everything in that small town was a landmark and it especially struck me how certain landmarks from my earliest memories of Provo were right next to landmarks from my last few months there. There was an aspect to their closeness that reinforced the length and roundness of human experience, and the pattern that God forms out of every discordance. Above all I was filled with deep gratitude for the experiences and the people that helped shape me in Provo.
Then I drove west to San Diego, to attend the wedding of the friend who was most responsible for the first steps of my adult maturity. At the wedding I ran into another large group of old friends. It was amazing where their lives have taken them in 8 years. Some that I worried about are doing just fine, like stylist for a Conde Nast magazine fine, while others were still floating around the same bar scene and still others were absent, lost to drugs. The way they interacted with me, how they treated me with consistent goodwill, helped me remember the person I was in high school, and just how much I have changed. I’ll keep those personal observations to myself, which perhaps is the greatest indicator of how New York has changed me, but I again felt the deep gratitude of having a place to go back to, and having people in that place that treat you like not a day has passed.