I went home this past weekend. Dropped the kids off with the parentals at their new address and headed over to my childhood home for one last visit. I requested to visit solitarily this final time. As I entered through the backdoor, wistful visions of strolling down memory lane penetrated my mind. 114 N. 4th Avenue was empty and quiet and I felt the contentment that seems represented when Maya Angelou wrote, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."
Everything seemed smaller than I remembered. The once-towering colonnades that separated the living room from the dining room must have shrunk over the years. Without the furniture and books and knick knacks, the rooms appeared tinier.
As I walked through, I willed myself to remember things....what were the special memories I wanted to recreate and capture in my mind's eye so as not to forget them? Although I only officially lived in this house for 7 or so years, this was the home where the most recent and longest part of my childhood had been spent. The memories should have been pouring out by now with a full-on nostalgic eruption. Yet, that was wasn't happening. "I just need to concentrate harder," I thought. I opened closets, ran my fingers along the carpet, peered through windows and jumped up and down. Not much. My mind was blank.
I decided on trying another floor and started up the stairs. The wooden banister with the little seat at the foot of the stairs was one of my favorite features of our house. My mom used to hang a heavy drape half way up the stairs to save on the heating costs during the winter. As I made my way up, I snapped a few pictures, more to have for later on when maybe I would have difficulty recalling what the house actually looked like.
As I peered into the bathroom and my sister's room, I reflected on how things had changed since I had lived there: the upstairs bathroom had been beautifully remodeled by Fred and the door and balcony that was once in Laurie's room was no more. However, nothing struck me as particularly sentimental. In a last-ditch effort of desperation, I tried to locate the spots on our bedroom doors that were once pummeled with scratch n' stickers. Alas, there were quite a few missing swatches of varnish but I couldn't really distinguish what constituted a sticker blemish and what made for some other type of door mishap. I did pause to think about the fact that my mom actually allowed my sister and I to decorate our hardwood finish with unsavory stickers galore. She was a nicer mother than I. On second thought, maybe that was done without her prior authorization.
I saved my room for last. I am not really sure how we picked our bedrooms back in 1984, other than my mom got the biggest, as it should have been. There were pluses and minuses to each room but my room had a very unusual feature - a small closet that was raised a couple feet above the floor. As I opened the door to it, I was surprised to discover the pleasant scent of cedar. I say surprised because I tend to associate memories or time periods in my life in one of two ways: either through music or scents. I did not recall the closet smelling like cedar when I lived there. The scents I do remember would be my mom’s sheets smelling like Downy and Vicks VapoRub when we were sick, or my favorite meal of homemade chicken and noodles cooking on the stovetop.
I sat thoughtfully in my adolescent bedroom for a few moments and remembered the posters that had lined my walls: Billie Jean-era Michael Jackson, Leif Garrett, and Andy Gibb to name a few. With a smile, I thought about some of the music that headlined my birthday party that year and how my friends and I all dressed up like our favorite musicians: Boy George, Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran. I even got the Air Supply cassette tape as a birthday gift. I am sure my mom must have made my favorite chocolate macaroon Bundt cake.
Finally, I headed back downstairs with plans to walk around outside. I am not sure what I expected to feel when I walked in for one last time but I guess I was thinking a bit sad, somewhat emotional, and nostalgic. As I began to mentally prepare for departure, I realized that while I still had some reflecting to do, I mainly felt peace and gratitude. I got to visit one last time. My parents have a beautiful home that is perfect for them and we can all enjoy together. This house will be a great home for another family. Home really isn’t a location anyways. The memories have started to come back and I know they will continue to trickle down. This quote by Amelia Earhart may sum up my experience best: "The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship." I am grateful for all of those things and I know the home that my mom created for my sister and I had a direct influence on that. And with appreciation, I even kissed the door before I shut it and said good-bye.
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