Neighbors

When I move somewhere new and am learning my way around, I venture away from home to the grocery store or the post office, and then navigate back. Every new destination is a separate place, with home as the center point. As I become more familiar with the city, I can start to link destinations together without having to start from home. My mental map fills in and I see how the places relate to each other, not just to my house. The flat map comes to life as I learn where the separate locations fit into the puzzle.

That happened to me today, even though I’m not somewhere new.

I met a friend for coffee this morning in an Oakland neighborhood I have visited many times. Before I left home, I was dreading one part of the drive. After merging on the freeway, I have to move over several lanes right away. Two lanes go off to the right, heading to a different part of Oakland, two lanes cross the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, and two lanes curve off to the left to my destination. I have to make it from the right side all the way to the left side. Crossing the lanes of commuter traffic rushing to the City is daunting. The best way to do it, maybe, is to put on my signal and dash into traffic without looking, because when I crane my neck around to try to find a gap, the commuters see the wide, darting eyes of an amateur and cut me off, one after the other. It’s like crossing a buffalo stampede.

Once I make it through, I follow the freeway downtown, passing the court and county jail, Lake Merritt and the Grand Lake Theater, Crocker Highlands and Fruitvale, and finally exit at Park Boulevard. Though it’s only about 10 miles, It feels like a big journey from home, away from my normal routes and comfort zone.

After saying goodbye to my friend this morning, I took a different way home. Google Maps took me the other direction instead of backtracking to the freeway that I came on. I wound my way past houses on one side and a large park on the other for about a mile, and suddenly, I knew where I was. I felt a puzzle piece drop into place.

I had come to another freeway that goes straight into Berkeley, and takes me home on a familiar route through town, past our first apartment, the Cal stadium and the dorm I lived in Sophomore year. I have always taken the buffalo-stampede route, never realizing that this back way was so close to what feels like home. That neighborhood is basically right next to my neighborhood.

Connections are powerful. In an instant, my perception of distance and separation was replaced with a new understanding. The piece fell into place because I saw a landmark I recognized, bringing that place within the boundaries of where I feel comfortable and at home. When I thought the only way to get there was the uncomfortable freeway trip, that place felt foreign, but coming around the other way made me see it from a different perspective.

Finding a community of people to feel at home with comes together piece by piece this way too. Connections happen when I see something in another that I know and understand from my experience. The landmarks that I recognize in others and they recognize in me are usually not the polished and put-together pictures posted on social media; they are the messier parts–the trying, failing, learning and growing that we all do.

I can’t predict when a puzzle piece will come together, but I know it when I see it.