Between the scraggly pine trees, shadows stretch with whispered invitation. I have the urge to take off my shoes and enter, knowing instinctively that the bed of pine needles will absorb the sound of my footsteps. Knowing subconsciously how cool it will be. Anticipating the smell of sap, the scrape of branches on my arms.

Despite standing in Texas on this side of the millennium, I stare into the flicker of light and dark and see Home – West Virginia twenty years ago. There was a patch of pines an acorn’s throw from the house and on any given Saturday, you could find me there, scrambling up the Lookout Pine to get a better glimpse of the neighborhood. 

“Ready to go?” Tommy asks, wrestling Snoop away from a distracting smell. 

Strange how the smallest thing can take you back, a sudden tunneling back down to your roots. Remembering my childhood reminds me of the interconnectedness of life. The boy-next-door was my best friend and chief partner in mischief. We met regularly for picnic breakfasts on the Great Rock. Spent afternoons playing in creeks and hunting dinosaurs. 

It felt like a world of space and freedom and simultaneous closeness with the people in my life – family, church, school, neighbors. Sometimes I worry that this interconnectedness is fading from our world. We like our space. If someone speaks to us in the grocery store, we’re surprised, knocked off-kilter. Especially after a long day of work, there’s the desire to plug in earbuds, head down, music up – please don’t even look at me. 

It’s rare to catch our neighbors outside. In Dallas, homes are endless rows of brick houses, a few struggling trees between them, not a single hiding place for a tyrannosaurus. We see each other rarely. Nod on occasion. Try not to check the mail at the same time. It’s different, and in a way, easy to accept. We become conditioned to the avoiding. The quiet. The keeping of secrets.

But we were created to be together. It’s easy to forget this when sharing takes such effort. Speaking from the perspective of someone who loves to be alone, who is happiest when at the top of the Lookout Pine, it’s not easy to send out dinner invitations. Not easy to engage a neighbor in real conversation or go out for lunch with a coworker.

I made a friend recently whose husband was diagnosed last week with cancer. Sure, I’ve lived most of my life with Cancer sitting in the corner, its malignant presence overshadowing birthdays and Christmases and the first day of school. As long as I can remember, Cancer was there. But despite that, I still feel so inadequate to help. It’s not the same. That was yesterday; this is today. 

But watching my friend cry as we talked about chemo and radiation and a roulette of bleak possibilities, I was reminded of how closely these ties bind us together. The commonality of struggle; something we should share, not hide. It’s beautiful, really, because it reminds us that each person in our life was placed there for a reason. 

If under God’s provision there are no maverick molecules in this universe, then there are certainly no by-accident relationships. There have been various people who have loved me in various seasons of my life, and I’m humbled by the times that I’ve felt the love of Christ through them, whether they realized it or not. I cringe at the thought of missing out on those relationships and the beauty of lives intertwined because of my introverted, 21^stcentury tendencies. 

Instead, I try to imagine the world I’d want my children to grow up in. A place where they feel the value in each other. Learning, growing, and changing under the constant chain of action and reaction, the threads that hold us together. The sorrowful ties often being the ones that bind the strongest.

As afternoon sunlight grows warmer, we walk away from the pine trees and winking shadows, back towards the house. 

“What are you thinking about?” Tommy asks.

I smile. “Home.”