“Everyday is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” — Matsuo Basho

When I look out my front door now, I see a river shimmering just beyond a busy street. My life’s journey has brought me here, and along with it the challenge of feeling at home as much as possible in a strange, new place.

It all had to do with practicality, that abstract concept whose meaning is determined by one’s current circumstances. It is not an affair of the heart but rather one of outside forces involving such things as closing dates and signed documents, stacks of boxes and the chaos of moving day. But when all is said and done, and the final step remains to be taken, there is the parting still to be dealt with, and all else pales in comparison next to that.

How do you bid farewell to a place that has become a part of the very fabric of which you are made? How do you explain to the trees and the loons and the deer that it will no longer be you peering out that kitchen window anymore, that it will be someone else, and that your sadness at leaving is coupled with a deep sense of betrayal? For no one will love it as you have, and no one will wrap his or her heart around it as completely.

These are the issues that I dealt with for weeks after moving here, spending days and sleepless nights wondering how I was ever going to make up for the fact that I won’t hear peepers here in the spring, nor will I hear thrushes calling from the deep woods in summer. I’ve managed, in the last few weeks, to set my sights on other pleasures, but they’ve been fleeting at best, and there are no longer any woods to go home to when all is said and done.

I have always known that my time there was borrowed, and that I would soon have to return it to its rightful owner. Standing on that back porch high above the slope always felt surreal as though it were all happening in a dream. And that is how I have decided to look at it ”“ as a dream that lasted for 13 years and from which I knew in my heart that I would someday have to awaken. And awaken I did, finally, and now here I am, hearing bird songs against a backdrop of traffic noise and seeing the sun’s setting light bathe trees in someone else’s backyard.

It’s not as though I’ve never lived like this. I have, several times, until my journey led me to that wooded hillside in Lyman. And so, it is simply a matter of trying to put those 13 years into a bearable perspective and making an honest effort to the pre-woodland mode I knew at other times in my life, when a tiny front stoop was my garden and a small shrub my bird sanctuary.

Oh, this place isn’t without its beauties. Just this morning, I heard geese flying over, headed more than likely to Number One Pond. And I just now came away from watching a pair of cardinals ”“ male and female ”“ pecking at the grass in the small backyard. House finches gather in the two azalea shrubs on the tiny front lawn, much to the puzzlement of Muffin, my cat, who perches on the back of the sofa to observe their antics deep within the shrubs’ branches. Robins, beloved harbingers of spring, sing loudly from the treetops across the street; and blackbirds gather in a tall fir tree next door before lifting in a great, dark cloud and heading toward some more distant destination.

My task now is to tease out the more subtle beauties that might be all too easily overlooked amidst the cacophony of life in a small town clustered around a busy secondary road. I was sad when a couple of friends told me recently that they’ve started hearing peepers. But when I returned later, I noticed new daylily shoots poking up from the soil and swollen buds on the azaleas. I saw, too, the Northern Flicker making its way up the dead tree trunk out back and heard a mourning dove calling from a power line.

Despite the sadness surrounding my recent move and the frustrations that go along with having to get used to a new and unfamiliar place, one thing remains clear: No matter where I’ve been or hung my hat, nature has always been close by to help ease the transition. It will be some time before closing my eyes doesn’t take me instantly back to my hill in Lyman. But those memories will someday wane and become less immediate, and I’ll hopefully be able to better appreciate how much richer my life has been for the experience.

— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Springvale, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.