Dear, here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right? Have you thought about it? I\u2019m guessing not\u2026at least not directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four letters, that\u2019s all. Here. Something simple, diverse; capturing attention, creating confusion; intimate, communal; active, passive. Verb, noun, adjective, adverb. Here is everything and nothing is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My fellow Hatters, don\u2019t get mad. Hang in with me here, there, and where we\u2019re headed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My relationship here is complicated. I was born there<\/em> but, functionally, have lived here my entire life. Not born, just raised. Does that mean I\u2019m \u201cfrom here\u201d? Are you from here? Where\u2019s the line in the sand? Well, obviously, that<\/em> line in the sand isn\u2019t here. Anyone from here understands that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up, here was a narrow experience. Deep, but narrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here was safe, here was comfortable. School. Church. Family. Country music. Lifted truck. Collar up. You look the part, you do the things, all within a 5-mile radius\u201415 minutes you say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Narrow felt enormous. But is that all that\u2019s here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you fit the mold (if you let it?), here absorbs you and shapes you, imperceptibly. Like a planet surrounded by moons: solidified and stationary in the moment but remaining an ever-moving target shaped by everything in the spheres\u2019 orbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe that\u2019s the big \u201chere\u201d energy we\u2019re always going on about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s funny, since we\u2019re just talking among friends here, I\u2019ve wanted nothing more than to be anywhere other than here. When asked what my favorite place in the world was, it was never here and, strangely, never anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m such a product of here in that regard: always looking for something outside myself; looking out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I mean, I spent time there<\/em>, got there as fast as I could after high school. Dreams filled with never returning here, desperately looking for jobs anywhere else. Boston, Chicago, New York. Please, anyone. Bueller? Nobody wanted to hire someone not from there. Someone from here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Defeated, I came back here, like that moon caught in an orbiting gravitational pull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the power of here\u2014incomprehensible at times but, at best, draws us in. It\u2019s also the power of there\u2014a force created by, in relationship with, here. But getting there from here can be just as complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is exclusive. It\u2019s not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There can be aspirational or confrontational; positive and negative\u2014I remember someone, somewhere, sometime saying everything was relative\u2014but I was hit by the negative before I could see the positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We learn the phrase \u201cdon\u2019t go there\u201d when we\u2019re young. Not the sassy and finger snappy, \u201coh, don\u2019t go<\/em> there,\u201d but the cautionary and reticent, \u201coh<\/em>, don\u2019t go there.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there was always here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know, revelatory! Insert a mind-blown or face-melting emoji; or imagine that someone actually wrote and published these words. It\u2019s also close enough to a Taylor Swift reference to either make this (seemingly) genius, or just lazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We digress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I\u2019ve returned here\u2014from there\u2014lived and learned more about here, I see the ways there is passively and actively shaped and reshaped over time and space. I\u2019ve never felt, or resented, here more because of its relationship to there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I grew up with countless images of there. There filled the TV screen every night; I only had to wait with bated breath until 5 or 10 to find out what happened there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank goodness I was here, not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we\u2019re caught bickering about directions and sectors, we\u2019ve put Descartes before the horse. A red herring. The fa\u00e7ade gives equal opportunity, but the gaze and outcomes demonstrate the gravity of the situation. Just because here and there are connected doesn\u2019t guarantee connectedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being aware of there makes its absence from here deafening. Here is so loud, there appears only as a whisper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My voice, too, was just a sound. Unsure if my still, small voice still leaves room for a still small voice from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My life and my voice are now caught, separated, between here and there. Angry. Sad. Remorseful. Embarrassed. Shameful. Joyful. Hopeful. Inspired. Present. Absent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this act of change, we solidify both here and there. We use infrastructure to divide here from there, to get from here to there. Decided by whom? What does it mean to bring there here or here there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, being so concerned with the sirens call of there may make us lose appreciation of what\u2019s here: our relationships to place and each other. As Spencer Scott notes, it\u2019s difficult to build a relationship when our interdependence is inconceivable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grassroots? Grasstops? Or just grassfire?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is only possible because of there and there is only possible because of here. After all, every there is someone\u2019s<\/em> here. And, I would argue, the closer you get to there, the more you\u2019re here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps our only real lesson is to remember that moments old adage that there has been here all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, friends, where do we go from here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is it really so complicated? Or is it just a path less traveled?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Funny how we can be from here and there and still consider each other from here when we choose to? Wild. There has more scales than a fish or a piano. But some chords resonate more than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some day you may find yourself singing every word to music you hate, but it\u2019s a part of who you are. It\u2019s part of here and part of you. Where we go depends on our ability to transcend here and there without losing ourselves in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019ve made it this far, I hope this doesn\u2019t read as \u201coh woe is me\u201d and I surely hope you don\u2019t leave feeling \u201coh woe is we.\u201d We\u2019ve been on a journey here. We\u2019ve Alice In Wandered all around there and here. My only fear merely being you not making it here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here is a choice, a risk, a relationship: to here, there, and everywhere in-between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m glad to be here (mostly) and I hope you are, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reluctantly, hopelessly, wonderingly<\/p>\n\n\n\n Collin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear, here: This is complicated. Right? Have you thought about it? I\u2019m guessing not\u2026at least not directly. Four letters, that\u2019s all. Here. Something simple, diverse; capturing attention, creating confusion; intimate, communal; active, passive. Verb, noun, adjective, adverb. Here is everything and nothing is here. My fellow Hatters, don\u2019t get mad. Hang in with me here, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n