Parts of this story are familiar to my friends, it was the first time the TSA checked my hair, for instance-- a thing I didn't even know they did. After a lifetime of neat buns and french rolls with chopsticks, the East Coast had finally taught me to pile it anything-but-neatly atop my head. What a spectacle I must have been, tugging at my threadbare sweater with one hand and dragging my rolling bag with the other as I entered the terminal, a cloud of black curls bobbing above my tear-streaked face.

One of the things I miss the most about driving at night in my hometown is the streetlamps, streaking by at regular intervals like fireflies, their soft glow backlit by the sparkling desert sky. He always drove with the windows down at night, the fading summer tousled his dark hair as we followed the empty highway toward the airport. I inhaled deeply, no longer nose-blind to how much Phoenix sort of smells like dust, in a good way– like kiln-dried clay and ozone.

We had spent a rainy day catching up in a bookstore cafe. Cloistered with our stacks at a tiny two-top, we split the biggest chocolate chip cookie either of us had ever seen while he told me stories about his students, then lamented with me about the basement flood which had decimated my book collection. Somehow, now, there is a link between the horror of water pouring into the basement and that giggly afternoon: when we pushed the last bite of cookie back and forth toward each other on its tiny plate, where it slid around like a ship in a storm-- until he picked it up and shoved it into my laughing mouth.

I felt his sigh as he hugged me tightly, for what would prove to be the last time. Pressed into the clean scent of his t-shirt as we stood, the evening breeze wrapping us in the radiant heat of the concrete outside the terminal.

He stopped short of a goodbye, holding up a finger for me to wait as he jogged around to the side door to retrieve what looked like a large brick. It was a box set of three books: The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The series had been a massive part of my personality for the majority of my teenage years, when our families had grown close, and the demise of my own cherished set in the flood had been how we ended up at the bookstore in the first place-- but these weren't new. They were his. I started to protest but he wouldn't hear it, shrugging his hands into his pockets as he stated simply: "You can't be without Tolkien."

It took me a long time to realize why that sentence had felt so much like a lifeline, an anchor that has transcended the years since, an echo that still reaches me with surprising frequency. He was right, of course. But it was the first time in my adult life that I had felt known. The culture shock of a cross-country move had widened the fault-line of my youthful longing into a chasm of loneliness and, in five otherwise benign words, a bridge had been built. It was a long time before I recognized that feeling again. But I think back on those moments with gratitude, because the truth is that I was searching for reasons to stay alive, and what I needed more than anything was to feel known.

These days, that sense of belonging is what I strive to cultivate in all of my important relationships. Doing this with intention feels a little like rebellion in a world that is increasingly impersonal, where sincerity often falls in categorically, with vulnerability, as “weak”. But, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there is something both terrifyingly vital and wholly indispensable about finding safety in others– even if it doesn’t last forever.