Today has been rainy and cool. I woke Noah up early because he had a dentist appointment and the drive there felt so cozy. I was looking forward to coming back here and cuddling up together and baking some bread. On the way home from Dr. Jo-Jo’s, we drove by the house I grew up in. We moved around a lot before I was in second grade but when I was eight, we moved to the house I think of as my childhood home. When we drove by today, we could see inside the dining room because they had the lights on. I saw that they took down the hideous wallpaper that was there and painted the china cabinet. We lived there until I turned 17.
Everytime I drive by my old house (which I do a few times a year because my Dad lives in the neighborhood just across the way), I feel shocked to see that there are strangers living in my home. I feel like marching up to the door and ordering them out. A few years back, the house was for sale and my sister actually got to walk through it. She said it’s much smaller than she remembered but that’s how those things are. Everything turns out to be smaller than it was in memory. I do remember that it had an awful floor plan. An impossible family room that was more of a walk through with dark chocolate brown carpet that made it feel like a cave. I think the people who bought it from us changed that but then they divorced, too, and sold it again. My mom used to seal off the living room with plastic every winter so we wouldn’t have to heat it. After the divorce, the formal dining room was empty except for the stereo. I used to lay in there every night and listen to Pink Floyd albums with the headphones on. There was a sunbed in the main bathroom — a huge wooden bed with drawers underneath that we called the coffin. No one ever used the sunbed, of course. I have no idea why the builders put one in.
I don’t know why, but almost every dream I have takes place in that house. Either it starts there or finishes there or a pivotal scene takes place in the hallway between our bedrooms. I guess my soul still calls that house home.
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