The Look Back

For years I had wanted it.
As countless times I’d driven that stretch of road,
I had wanted time to just stop for a minute and take a picture of the way the view from that point looked.

But time was always ticking.
Racing against the clock to get the kids to school on time.

Run, run, run as fast as you can…

There just wasn’t time to pull the car over and run across the road and snap the photo
of the way that the look back across the laguna towards home appeared in the morning light.

The way the hills rolled dusty green.
The way the fog lingered still.
The sun now rising.
The hot air balloon floating.

Every day that view struck me, and made me inhale the scent of my home.
Every morning I got to the top of that hill, looked to the left, thought about how blessed I was to live in this place,
and told myself one day I would stop and take the picture.

But then I'd just kept driving.

However, two weeks ago, with emotions from the Las Vegas shooting still new,
I was hit with a resolve that this time
I’d actually DO it.

I would take the picture that meant that I, Kerri Green, was chasing beauty.
I had thoughts that I would write about just how “important it was to do the things we feel pressed to do.”
To find the beauty and then to follow it.
Instead of driving on and re-wishing my wish, this time I would leave extra early.
I would make room for my dream.

This time I would pull to the side.

That morning everyone in my house looked at me sideways like I was crazy as I pushed them out of the house,
telling them I had a picture to take.
We had never left so promptly.

Don’t tell Daddy we ate cereal in the car.

As we rounded that turn I felt excited to be finally DOING the thing.
My kids yelled for me to watch out for cars as I parked and ran across the two-lane road for the shot.
I was elated. The balloon was even there!

I returned to the car.
I drove on again; a sense of accomplishment inside.

That thing I’d always wanted to do was now done!

How was I even to know the real reason I’d stopped there that day?
My thoughts on the story it would make completely off from the one I would tell.

How was I to know that mere days later, I would look from the top of that very same spot as our car sped past fleeing the largest fire in California history that was now devouring my city, and possibly our home?

The view had gone from idyllic to terrifying in days.

That look back would never be the same.

What you see here is my HOME.

Just beyond that grazed laguna.
The city where I first moved out.
Where I met my love.
Where all of my children were born.

This post card view is my late night cricket song.
My pair of kicked off shoes.
My familiar Christmas lights.

This view holds friends and so much laughter.
Games played around a table.
Cheers on New Year’s Eve.

This city is my “Good morning.”
This city is “Good night.”
The background of my photos.
My peaceful night of sleep.

Here, my beloved church lifts up its praises.
My children swing on swing sets.
My friends, a constellation.

My weather app is automatic.
My pets know to return there.

And
MY HEART WILL EVER LOVE IT.

That day on that crest with my camera pointed towards those hills,
I did not yet know that I would be about to capture my very last picture of “before.”

Before the view I loved was marred.
Before 3000 homes were taken.
Before our lives forever changed.

I didn’t know that the view that morning would live on as a postcard in my mind
of all the beauty that lies
in The Looking Back.

In cherishing the moments when you have them just over your left shoulder.

In taking the time to pull to the side of the road.

My heart now longs for what was my city.

My heart now stands and waits for it at the top of that hill once more.