All photos provided by Laura Hernandez Photography
There is something pleasant and simple about going home. I tend to forget how much I love my birthplace until I'm back. It's easy to love Salinas California in July, when you live in Fresno California in July. Besides the beautiful weather, the less than 20 minute drive to the ocean, or the sweet smell of the strawberries straight from the fields, there is no place like my first home. I'll admit that I took complete advantage of it in my youth. So naive to all it had to offer. Hidden treasures I didn't value at the time.
Now, in this season in my life I'm so grateful for the blessings it brings me. My grandparents who shower my girls with love and food that I remember from my childhood. Nothing compares to freshly made tortillas or my Grandma's famous rice. Watching my children play in the backyard where I once played as a child. With some of the same toys, and all of the same joy. Walking on the wharf with my girls and my dad, the same walk my dad and I made for years. I now see it with different eyes, I feel it with a fuller heart. Having picnics on a little sliver of beach tucked away from the masses, just enjoying the sand, the sea, and the sun.
On this last trip home I even got to catch up with a precious friend from high school. After all these years, seeing her brought the same comfort it brought all those years before. We are completely different people now, and yet completely the same. Seeing her, was food for my soul. Sharing breakfast with her, stories about our kids, our marriages, our lives, was a blessing. To still have her in my life is a blessing. How lucky we are that things like miles and years cannot change the connection of friendship.
Home is where your heart is, and sometimes if you are lucky,
your heart can be in two places at once.
