Migration

Written by Elyse Garverick

Geese flying south mark the sky every autumn, letting you know that cold weather is coming and everything will soon slow down; the world will quiet to a dull roar for at least a few months. They’ll be back in the spring. 

Purple finches, on the other hand, head north in the autumn. Except when they don't. 

When a bird's typical migration destination is interrupted and the bird is forced to move elsewhere, this sudden invasion to another place is called an irruption. The finch, in some years, for reasons beyond its control (often related to its ability to find food), will flock to a foreign place unexpected and unannounced. Sometimes the new environment is welcome, sometimes it’s not. These sudden changes in migration patterns can appear to be random or sudden. It certainly must feel that way to the finch. Why does a bird that flies north suddenly end up in the south? 

I am now 27 years old. I haven't lived in the same house for more than 15 months at a time since the day I turned 18. At times I've felt more like the purple finch--with its strange migrations and its scouring the earth in anticipation of what change might come next--than the geese with its graceful yearly migration, there and back again. 

There were dorm rooms in various states of cleanliness (and various states of how much I cared), my parents' house nestled among the yearly rotating Indiana crops, the kindest host home in New Zealand (yes, New Zealand) with the heated mattress pad and the little orange cat named Zooma who would meow at my upstairs window begging to be let inside. There was the house on Felton Street; the fireplace didn't work but we’d stay in the living room singing along to the 30 Rock theme music (poorly, but with great fervor), episode after episode until midnight. There was the Logansport house with the friends next door who always invited me over for the most amazing dinners. That house had all the original wood trim, delicate windows, and the CREEPIEST basement (I had to kill a mouse down there). And then, there was the Nashville apartment in the neighborhood that turned out to be unsafe. At least the apartment had vaulted ceilings.  

In the last seven years, I've been a housekeeper a few times, an intern a few times, a professor, a youth pastor, an assistant pastor, a barista, a manager of two different coffee shops, and a student. 

We are given control of much of our lives; but we all face migrations now and then that are unexpected, or that come before we are ready. All this flying and changing of course can be tiring and lonely. I didn't always have a physical space I felt was mine. Even for an enneagram four who desires aesthetically pleasing environments, nesting started to feel like a fool's errand. Relationships changed. Some even vanished. Practices of rest developed just in time for another change to occur, and I'd have to change them all over again.  In seasons of loud grief, I wondered if I would chase friends away. And at times I wondered if, at the end of the day, someone would be there for me if I needed them or if I was going to have to keep doing all of this alone.

But when home so often is the sky rather than a place to lay your head, you're forced to adapt. The marvel of all mammals is our ability to do this. Home becomes other things besides a roof or a bedroom.  It becomes a nighttime routine. Home becomes wherever my dog is with me. Home is my favorite people. Home is wherever I can actually hear God.  And even scarier, home has to become a place that exists within myself. 

I find home often in churches. It's been many different churches, but in all my travels, I've usually managed to find one in which I can rest a while. For me, I find that a church can still be a safe place. There are many in my generation who have been shown otherwise, and there have been times when I myself needed to step back for a minute. I realize that it's a gift that I can still hear grace the inside the four walls of a church building. The old hymns are not only nostalgic for me; they echo ancient truths that grow up with me; ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ does not mean that life will always be one straight path, and doesn’t mean that life will always be easy or simple. It DOES mean that God walks with me in the middle of all of it; that hymn waits patiently as I learn how to hold that tension. 

I find home when I'm with my favorite people. When I finally get to bake in the kitchen with my mom, whether the drive to Indiana was great or terrible, I am home again. When I am held by the man that I love, whether the day has been great or terrible, I am home again. When I get a text from my best friend telling me in great detail about her day, whether the day has been great or terrible, I am home again. They help keep my feet on the ground. They keep me sane. 

I can, with some work, also find home in myself, and this is probably the most important thing. It’s taken years to hone this ability and I’m still working on it. I've been to therapy in the past and I'll probably go back. I've walked through grief well and come out on the other side; not unscathed, but still whole. I'm learning to love myself in all of its imperfect and changing parts and I'm learning to be loved by God with all my imperfect and changing parts.  These two go hand in hand; one cannot be separated from the other. 

My favorite place to get quiet with myself is outdoors. It's where gratitude is easiest for me; the higher the altitude, the thinner both the air and liminal space between heaven and earth become. I feel safe from COVID. My shoulders lift and spread; I breathe deep and release tension I've held about any job or life stress out here. Everything feels its simplest; God made this. And it is good. 

I'm the small purple finch, flying all over, hoping for places to land. I think these migrations will slow eventually; I’m told this is just how it is living in your twenties. In the meantime, these homes in between that are not a bed or a roof make those migrations a little less daunting. They're not trivial, these migrations, but they're not everything. Home is not only a place.

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Elyse currently manages a great team at Ugly Mug Coffee Cafe and Roastery in Nashville, Tennessee and dreams of creating spaces where good food abounds and everybody at the table is seen and valued. She is rarely seen without her Corgi/German Shepherd pal Dobby.