Finding a sense of belonging comes easy to some. For me, it took 14 cities, seven states and a couple of countries before I found a place to plant my roots. The funny thing is, when I finally found home, I didn’t even know it.
It was 2012 when I awoke to the mountain dew gathering in the curls of my knotted hair. The morning sun peered through the tall trees as the freight train soared along the mountain’s curve. A glisten of a fawn’s eye caught mine as it drank from the aligning creek. I clung to the view of the creature for as long as I could before the train rushed away through the foreign terrain. The forest almost reminded me of my home state of Oregon, only the evergreens were fewer and farther between. Wherever I was, I knew that I wanted to find it again – someday.
The funny thing about freight train hopping without a cellphone was that I rarely knew where I was. “What state is this?” I’d ask the closest gas station attendant. They’d look at me in disbelief. Given my appearance, the giant pack I’d have on my back, and my ragged company, nine out of 10 times they’d placate me in a voice that told me that they thought I was out of my damn mind. Maybe they were right.
That dewy morning, the chill seeped through my clothes. I pulled a black garbage bag over myself and lit a candle for heat. I poured water into my tin cup from an over-recycled gallon jug. I added a packet of instant coffee that I scored back in Baltimore, where we hopped out of two nights before. My road dog stayed fast asleep in the well of the Intermodal train. The well is a small space between the edge of the train car and the Conex container it carries. It’s the perfect place to burrow inside your sleeping bag until the next town. I sipped my cold, chunky coffee and wrote in my journal about the deer in the scar of the mysterious mountain.
The sun was sky high by the time the train pulled up along a river that flowed between industrial and residential landscapes nestled in sprawling hills. I pulled out the 2010 Harley-Davidson road map that my parents gave me when I started traveling. I traced my fingers along the roads out of Baltimore but quickly gave up trying to locate us. There was no gas station attendant to ask. I sat with the new surroundings and relished the abundant, ragged beauty.
A congruence of three rivers formed at the tip of somewhere’s downtown. The train continued along the shore where folks fished. We rode past the sight of a submarine and a center that reminded me of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry back home. I wish I knew where I am so I can come back here, I thought. The hills, the rivers, the industry all reminded me of home, before home shapeshifted into a playground for the wealthy.
A blizzard, a show and a memory
Four years after that freight train ride, I was on the road, alone, touring with my humble music project. The historic January 2016 blizzard hit the northeastern states and I got snowed in for three days with kind strangers who invited me into their home after a seriously close accident on the icy Maryland roads. All of my shows were canceled. When the blue sky finally broke through and the snow plows came out, a friend called. “I can book you a show in Pittsburgh, and if you want to stay, there’s a concrete job I’m working on. I can probably find you a demolition gig, too. There’s lots of work like that out here,” he said. Without a hesitation I packed up and drove west.
Arriving in Pittsburgh, I quickly learned that my friend’s kindness was not unique. I felt a sense of belonging almost immediately and fell in love with the city. I decided to stay for a while. Travelers’ lives are fluid like that.
Later that spring, I was driving down West Carson Street. I saw the submarine, the Carnegie Science Center, and the congruence of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. It all clicked, and suddenly I knew where I was that day on the freight train. Convinced by the community that I had befriended, the unique and rich culture, and this wild full-circle, I decided right then that this is where I would stop, indefinitely.
For just over a year, I lived in a camper on the back of a 1996 Chevy Silverado truck in an alleyway in Polish Hill. I worked three jobs to save up for a house. In November 2018, I bought a 1900 brick home in Sheraden, a city neighborhood that began as an incorporated borough around the construction of the railroad depot in the late 1800s. Freight trains on the very same route I was on that day stop at the bottom of the hill that my house sits on. Around the corner is a bluff that overlooks the electrical plant on Brunot Island, but if you walk up a bit, you can see the view I saw that day. Whenever I pass by, I am reminded of how I somehow found the mysterious city in the hills.
Not bringing Portland to Pittsburgh
My home is humble and needs lots of love. I am often chasing drafts and leaks and unearthing new problems that first-time homeowners endure, especially if they bought their house on a budget like mine. I’ve knocked down walls and built them. I’ve dug up holes and filled them. I’ve painted and carpeted and mortared. I’ve labored love that I didn’t know I could have for an inanimate object. I found pride in both myself and my life once I found home in Northern Appalachia.
For a traveler, the concept of home means many things. For me, home was wherever my feet were. Now, home means sanctuary, a place of rest and prayer, a place of family and safety.
My hometown of Portland, Oregon also has hills covered with industry and homes, and a deep blue collar history. Growing up, my father worked in the shipyards. When the shipyards shuttered, he worked in the steel mills, until he worked himself almost to death and was deemed “fully disabled.” (This says a lot considering he has been an amputee since 1982). My mother stayed home and took care of us kids, except for when my father was laid off. I started working at age 15 but never figured out how to get ahead. I was left behind, along with the rest of us low-income kids who came of age along the I-5 corridor during the Great Recession.
Soon, Portland struck a deal with the devil and in came the private developers. In came the expensive rents and mortgages. In came the coffee shops and mustache boutique barbershops that replaced our auto and tire shops. My hometown quickly became a place of discomfort and disconnect. I left at 18 to go travel. “If I’m gonna be broke and homeless, I might as well go see some cool shit,” I said to a friend at the time.
Lately, I’ve watched blighted houses get restored in Sheraden. While other homeowners in the neighborhood are excited, I can’t help but be uneasy. Knowing that I play a (small) role in the incoming gentrification in Pittsburgh just by moving here, I try my best to keep my footprint as harmless as possible and encourage other newcomers to do the same. Shop local, give your neighbors a ride, don’t rent or buy from development companies, and most importantly, don’t demand that the culture shift to your liking. We have moved into someone’s home. We should be using our best manners.
I spent years looking for a place of belonging; from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska, Louisiana, California, Montana, Perú, everywhere I searched for the right place to finally call home. I lived out of vehicles for most of that time and no matter where I was I’d eventually be told, one way or another, to “move along.” However, in an alleyway in Pittsburgh, I woke up to homemade soup, leftovers and even a camper-sized crockpot sitting on my truck’s bumper. In Pittsburgh, folks say hello and rarely turn their nose up at one another. In Northern Appalachia, we value the blue collar and the stories that come along with hard living; and do I have some stories to tell. I sometimes wonder where I’d be if I never found the Paris of Appalachia. Probably still searching, with a pack on my back – waiting for home to find me.
Sarah Samms Velázquez, PWS, CRM is a writer and community herbalist who destigmatizes the human experience, one story at a time. Sarah’s work has appeared in literary magazines across the country, including NBAP Literary and Pathos. Sarah is the founder of The Medicine House, a community herbalism project and aspiring urban herbal farm in Pittsburgh. She is currently finishing her debut book, Materia Medica: Memoirs of a Wounded Healer. You can find more about her work at www.sarahsvelazquez.com.
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