the home within my mind, part II

when google maps keeps us frozen in time for a little bit longer

On the hardest days, I bring myself back to the mind-mapping of familiar homes. The homes I’ve had in what feel like past lives now…ones where without these visits, the details begin to blur and fade. The twinge of nostalgia always hurts a little less after the first or second visit. It is a practice of keeping these places alive, long after they’ve been deserted. It is an understanding that from here forward, I know just how good I have it. Living in the moment protects me from ever revisiting the naive space that childhood brings- one where the arrogance of youth overshadows just how important it is to be here, experiencing.

How could we ever possibly understand as children, that we will look back on the most mundane memories, pining for any real clues that they even existed at all?

(read part I here)

On this particular night, I need to remember what my grandparents house smells like— how the too-tiny kitchen always has something wafting from the stove— the way the 70’s wood paneling lines the walls and the tick of the cuckoo clock fills the gap between conversation. But there is always conversation here, because the house is rarely empty. The back room floor is cushioned with a bright blue carpet… the room my brother and sister and I usually sleep in. The little slice of window overhead always encourages the moon to keep me company, long after everyone else had fallen asleep. I’ve never in my life, felt alone here.

I remove the blanket from my headspace and open my computer, the bright light seeming to suck all of the space and energy from the pitch black room. I type in my grandparent’s address in Binghamton, New York. I want to remember what the front porch looks like. I need it to help me visualize stepping beyond the barrier of the three-windowed door with the 60’s lock, to remember the smell of my grandmother’s perfume and the way the blue carpet felt on my toes. I know that many of these details will be lost, because it was sold back in 2018 when my gramps passed away. It doesn’t prevent my curiosities, I want to know what the new owners have since done with it, if they’ve ripped up my grandfather’s flower beds along the side of the house or repainted the paint chipping on the garage out back, the place where we kept our wiffle ball bats and sidewalk chalk, removing any and all traces that my grandparents’ love ever existed at all. 

Instead, the image that appears before me on my computer screen is 15 or 20 years-old, taken when my grandfather and grandmother were both still alive.

The flowerbeds are blooming so it must be summer. My gramps would wake up extra early in the mornings to tend and water them, beaming with pride each season they bloomed. I remember his body this way, when it was strong and capable of the up and the down and the bending and the running— how he was meant to be. The google camera capturing their flag out front, and their favorite sign bought by their grandkids hanging on the front door. Their gold car sits in the driveway, the pavement looks new and fresh from when they finally chose to pave it the summer I turned 13.

A strange sensation in my chest blooms like the flower beds I’m staring at longingly, one where I can’t remember the space and time I stand in.

Suddenly I feel the urge to pack up the car with luna and my paints, drive 24 hours straight, until I pull into the quiet little driveway in upstate new york. I’ll get out and remember the excitement that filled my belly as a little one, unbuckling my seatbelt before we even pulled in the driveway to ensure I could swing open the van’s back door and run up the three little stairs onto the porch, where I knew they would both be waiting for me. Every single time, they were always waiting.

Looking at this photo made me feel like they still were. Sam, why haven’t you called or stopped by? It’s just been so long. 

I’ll tell them that I’m sorry I didn’t visit more in the summers, that I made a mistake and actually didn’t outgrow the playground around the corner, or beg my grandmother to teach me the step-by-step of her fudge recipes. I’d ask if I could help mow the lawn one more time on my grandfather’s lap and not complain about the sound, or sit down patiently to help him set up the big train around the Christmas tree. I would drink in the details each time I slept on that wood frame couch in the living room, how the house smelled of coffee in the morning and witness the understanding as a child—that no amount of time there would ever quench the longing of needing to be back. I would be less annoyed about the two hour car ride with my noisy brother and sister, learning instead to put on my headphones and spend more time getting up there to be your granddaughter.  

I look at the zillow photo and know my grandparents are still alive when it was taken, my grandfather watching the syracuse football game while my grandmother bakes a delicious meal or water the plants on the porch– as if existing happily still in some alternate universe, where death is irrelevant and we did not bury them next to one another in the cemetery 8 miles away.

Still I stare at the photo until I eventually drift into a restless sleep, hoping that I’ll see the door crack open and my grandpa eagerly wave me inside, forever peaking through the window of that front porch, just to see if I’ve come home. 

If you enjoyed this journey to my inner most-tender parts— would you consider upgrading to paid? the next few weeks will be for paid subscribers and I’d love to have you there x