Last week, I went to the cabin of a friend along with two other friends, all of us Oklahoma born. While driving an hour out of town, we started talking about how beautiful the state is, one friend calling it underrated, with a diverse landscape that we appreciate. All of us are well-traveled, spanning the world, so it’s not like we haven’t seen the beauty of the Swiss Alps, the Mediterranean, the Colorado Rockies, the national parks, and on and on. We love it all. But we still feel tied to this land where we were born.

We had a stunningly beautiful afternoon to enjoy all that was around us…I love the rivers, creeks, scrub and blackjack oaks in rural Oklahoma. Fall hadn’t touched it yet, but it’s on the verge.

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Our roots are important to us no matter how many times we pull them up. I recently traveled with two friends, one who lives in Tulsa, born in Portland. She will forever be an Oregon girl. Our other friend has lived in so many places, including Tulsa, on so many continents, that she has to put down her roots over and over. I don’t know how that feels…I can’t imagine. She adapts well. What I understand is that we do feel connected to our land, to our environment and we find peace in it. There is something that pulls at our hearts from the land we have inhabited, the land where we grew up. In it, we find our true selves, we’re stripped bare. For those who move around, it must be a different feeling, one of making those connections wherever you are at the time, mixed with memories of where you’ve been. Neither one is better, they are just a part of us.

I will share the places of the heart with my Okie girls, with my friends whose roots are elsewhere, whenever I can. We need the places, but we also need the people. Peace…