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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

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Finding Your Home in a Not-Quite-Home Place

February 2, 2016 By Michelle

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When people ask me where I’m from, I always answer the same way. “Nebraska,” I say. “I live in Nebraska, but I’m from Massachusetts.” I want to make sure they know about my roots. Because even though I’ve lived here almost 15 years, the truth is, in my heart I still call Massachusetts home.

I love Nebraska. I love its wide, expansive sky. I love the way the fields are brushed brown to green to gold in harmony with the seasons. I love how Nebraska has birthed in me a love for trees, simply because there are fewer here. I love the warmth of Nebraska’s people, the small-town feel of Lincoln. I love my tiny yard, my chaise lounge in the corner of the back patio, the little turquoise library I can see from my writing desk.

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I don’t pine for Massachusetts on a daily basis. It’s not like I’m moping around the Great Plains, bemoaning the corn fields and the ribbons of road unfurling straight to the horizon and the fact that I absolutely must not forget to wear red on game day. It’s only when I go home for a visit that I am immediately reminded of where my heart truly lives.

I ease awake in the slant of golden August light that warms my childhood backyard, as if part of me has been sleeping this whole time. I awaken to the scent of over-ripe apples decaying in the weeds. I awaken to the oaks, strong and stately, pressed together, a canopy of green. I settle in Massachusetts, wholly, fully, in body, mind and spirit, like I do nowhere else.

Roots and Sky_cover (003)In her new book, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons, Christie Purifoy writes of home and our longing for it so evocatively, so tenderly, it’s almost too much to bear. Yet at the same time she gently reminds the reader of our inclination to idealize and romanticize, of our tendency to allow our dreams and yearnings to define a false reality. There is danger, Christie warns, in fixing our hearts so resolutely on the memories of yesterday and the hopes of tomorrow.

“If I want to abide in this day, to make my home in it, I must only tear my eyes from tomorrow and look around,” Christie writes. “For there is a wholeness to this day that I do not want to miss. As established in the beginning, there is evening and morning. There is sun and moon. There is the cacophony of daytime living and the quiet music of nighttime rest.”

I may never make Massachusetts my home again, and truthfully, this breaks my heart a little bit. But Roots and Sky has also reminded me of this: “When I stop trying to fill my empty places, I leave room for glory.” Christie Purifoy’s eloquent book is a reminder to all of us that there is something good, beautiful and whole, even in our not-quite-home places.

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Christie PurifoyChristie Purifoy lives with her husband and four children at Maplehurst, an old, brick farmhouse in southeastern Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago and, a few years later, traded the classroom for a picket-fenced garden and an old writing desk. Today she grows zucchini her four children refuse to eat (although the zucchini-loving chickens are perfectly happy with this arrangement).

Christie’s first book Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons (Revell) releases today. I simply cannot recommend this book enough. It is stunningly, beautifully written – the kind of book you will return to again and again.

Filed Under: book reviews, home, place Tagged With: Christie Purifoy, Roots & Sky

Graceful Summer: The Scent of Home

August 10, 2012 By Michelle

The sun hangs low as we skirt fields of sweet corn, green and tall. Past white split-rail fence, horses with soft brown faces buried in grass, the long yellow barn, hay in stalls. Over the bridge spanning the slow Scantic where we waded in secret, scrunching up the hem of our shorts as the cicadas sawed.

I notice it the minute we pull out of the airport parking lot and hit the winding back roads. I never recognized it in all the years I lived there, long before I met Meadowlarks and grasshoppers, searing wind and flat plains. 

Now, though, it’s immediate, tangible. Moist and hot, dense and fertile.  A little bit of farm, a little bit of woods.

The scent of summer, of home.

It smells like hot tar and bicycles with plastic waffle-weave baskets and rainbow daisies, banana seats, tassles twisting from the handlebars like pom poms. 

Like the smudgy sweetness of newspaper print on fingertips, pulling the red Radio Flyer door to door, slipping pages under welcome mats.

Like afternoons sprawled on splintery wood, Sun-In and Coppertone SPF 8, Casey Kasem’s Top 40, acrid chlorine on warm skin. 

Like mornings in the aluminum rocker with the cracked floral cushions, bare feet brushing astroturf, floorboards creaking, Where the Red Fern Grows.

Like towels heavy on the clothesline, cidery apples melting into the grass, blueberries piled into green cardboard containers on the roadside stand, White Owl cigars, Dad in his driver’s cap on the back deck.

It smells like my wedding day, hot and still, veil clinging to my back, Nana’s Chanel No. 5.

We drive from the airport in light the color of sunflowers, the boys next to windows all the way down. I sit between them in the back seat, my hands on their knees, wind on my face. And my dad brings us home.

Have you ever been transported somewhere by a familiar scent?

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Welcome to Graceful Summer, a link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

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Filed Under: graceful summer, home

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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