Home is...

A friend of mine is saying goodbye to her childhood home.
Another friend still mourns hers over a year after it was gone.

I have a life-long friend who grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. She built her house in the lot behind her parents’ house, the only home she ever lived in. Her sister built her house across the street from their parents.

I can’t imagine living that way. Or, rather, I can only imagine.

I’ve moved over 30 times in my life. When I was growing up we never lived anywhere longer than two or three years. We moved. A lot. As an adult, I’ve also moved a lot. We’ve been in our current house for six years, almost as long as the previous one. We were there seven. That’s longer than anywhere else. Ever.

Sometimes I think that there must be some gypsy blood mixed in with that of my rabble-rouser, non-Pilgrim Mayflower ancestor. My father moved a lot while growing up, so did his mother, and her father, and so on back and back through the generations. For the most part they settled in one place sometime after one or more of their children moved out. And then the children move. And move. And move. Our youngest will soon be done college. I wonder when and where I will settle down...if...

When you say goodbye to a home, you can take your memories with you, but their shadows remain with the house, whispering silently between the walls, under the floors, and above the ceilings. The window panes hold tight to the pains they witnessed, the years of tears splashed like so many raindrops. They also remember the joys, the toys, and the girls and boys.

And the pets. Many are buried under bushes and trees, or under rocks and flowers. My no-longer-living pets are widely scattered. My turtles Tom & Jerry are in Mars. My dogs Cinamon (sic) and Bridget are at the top of the hill near Eastbrook. Two orange kittens, three lorikeets, and a hamster are in two places in Venezuela. Two guinea pigs are in New Wilmington. The multitudes of fish were mostly flushed, but not all at once.

My grandmother’s house was one of the few consistent places I knew while growing up. She lived in the same house from the time I was born until I was in my 40s. Another was a certain pine tree that my great-grandfather had planted when my grandma was a little girl. I lived only a few miles from it when I lived in the last place I lived before where I am now. My aunts moved my grandma out west when she was in her mid 90s. When she died, she was just six months shy of her 100th birthday. Very shortly after, the tree went down in a storm. I miss her house almost as much as I miss her.

Saying goodbye to a home doesn’t have to be the end. You keep pieces of the home in your heart for as long as you live. It keeps pieces of you, too.

(for Laura, Hana, and Shelly)

Getting Lost

I get lost.

I can find my way around a map as well as follow directions. That’s not the problem.

Yesterday I knew I needed to turn left, but since my autopilot isn’t fond of left turns onto busy streets, it took over and we turned right. Luckily I realized and was able to get where I was going anyway, since I am quite familiar with the roads. No problem. Besides, it was a nice day for a drive.

When I drove with my youngest daughter to my uncle’s funeral in New Jersey in 2013, I found my way from my house on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, to the funeral home in Toms River. We used maps and printed directions and arrived just in time. After the service I couldn’t find my way to my aunt’s house even by following my cousins. They disappeared in traffic. I had the address so my daughter entered it into the GPS (aka bitch in a box) and I turned where GPS voice said to turn until she wanted me to drive into a solid cinder brick wall. There was a school parking lot near by so I parked there while figuring out what to do. I called one of my cousins (the only one I had a phone number for) but she didn’t answer because she hadn’t taken her phone off “silent mode” after the funeral. It was dark and I had no idea where we were other than in some school parking lot in Toms River, New Jersey. Then I remembered that other contact information was on Facebook. Luckily, I had a good signal and I sent a group message to all the cousins who were at the wake asking them to call me. It wasn’t long before the phone rang and I was guided to join the rest of the family. It turns out that the GPS was right. The house was fairly close to that wall. The problem was it was about five miles away through the labyrinth road of the gated community. My car doesn’t hover or go through walls, and I’m fine with that. I seldom listen to the GPS voice. I do not trust that bitch.

(We won't discuss the part about getting lost while following those same cousins to a restaurant, but that wasn't entirely my fault. The lights were out on the sign and I drove right past it and the traffic patterns there make you go miles out of your way to turn around. It was an "adventure" that I am glad is over.)

Twenty years ago, before GPS, before we had cell phones, I drove from Pennsylvania all the way to Charleston, South Carolina with my three kids, ages 13, 8, and 1.5. I had a map. We got there without any trouble at all. I won’t say it was the perfect trip. It was summer hot and our minivan’s air conditioner didn’t work, but we had fun. And, we didn’t get lost.

This morning I went out to run a couple of local errands. As I was getting in the car to come home I realized with horror that I left my cell phone at home. At least, I hoped I left it at home and hadn’t lost it. I felt a twinge of panic. I felt lost. I was less than a mile from home on a road that takes me to my house. I realized how ridiculous the situation was. What if something happened? What would I do without my cell phone?

The same thing I would have done if I had to twenty years ago. Ask a person for help. I didn’t worry. I wasn’t going to get lost.