This young woman found her future in an unexpected place: her hometown of Fresno | Opinion

Over the summer, I caught up with a friend from college, who was back in town for family matters.

We found ourselves at an old Fresno haunt. His eyes darted around the lounge, which remained mostly unchanged since our nights spent there as 20-somethings. Back when we used to talk about what — and where — we wanted to be when we grew up.

Like several of my friends, I was born and raised in Fresno, then graduated from Fresno State. Unlike them, I stayed.

Over the years, I’ve asked visiting friends what brings them back to their hometown. They asked what keeps me here.

Their words are kind, of course, and not so direct. The questions linger between the lines of “What’s next?” and “Where do you see yourself in the future?” As though Fresno is a waiting room, and I’m sitting in an uncomfortable chair, until my name is called and I go where I’m “supposed” to be.

Some people need physical distance to feel a metamorphosis. For years, I thought the same. I thought that’s what it meant to change: to change the scenery of my life. To move away. I wrote in my childhood diary about dreams of living in New York, somewhere “cool.”

I believed that staying in one place wasn’t progress. That growing up meant outgrowing the familiar — to pack my city away as one boxes up their favorite stuffed animal. Surely I couldn’t hang on to it forever. Or could I?

I’m well aware of Fresno’s imperfections. If you’ve spent a summer day here, you know of at least one glaring flaw. But no city is perfect, and even if one existed, what — or who — defines an ideal home?

So I look for the good. I don’t have to go far to find the best tacos and the freshest produce. I savor the rare moments when I get that glimpse of the Sierra skyline. Yet when I marvel at that view, I sometimes wonder what, if anything, has changed in my life.

For those friends who moved away, coming home means planning a road trip or buying a plane ticket. For me, it means traveling down familiar roads, eight miles from where I grew up. My parents still live in my childhood home, though the yellow and brick exterior now has fresh paint and new stone work, among other upgrades.

On the surface, this might look like a still life. But when I walk through the front door and into the kitchen, and sit down for a home-cooked meal at the same dining table from all those years ago, I see what’s different. The empty chairs where loved ones used to sit. Beautiful photographs taken by my husband, framed and hanging on the walls.

This chair is cozy. I know why I stayed.

Later, the four of us walk into the backyard, a forest of various fruit trees, banana plants, prickly succulents, and the sounds of chirping birds and squirrels.

We check on the citrus that’s coming in this season. My father pulls back a lemon tree branch to show me the growth.

“Looks like we’ll get a good amount,” he says.

When those lemons, limes and oranges eventually arrive, I will leave with overflowing bags of fruit, just as I’ve done in seasons past. I imagine what I’ll do with them. Maybe I’ll bake my famous lemon blueberry tart, or squeeze the oranges until I get every last drop of juice.

I know that in time, more lines will stretch across my father’s face, and that my mother will finally embrace her gray hair. And I know that someday, I will be the one to water the lemon tree.

Tennessee Williams wrote, “I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further — for time is the longest distance between two places.” I didn’t go to the moon or Manhattan, but somewhere between my childhood home and where I’m at now, I found a special place in my heart for the lemons in the backyard.