"She simply smiles, then isn't"
When I was younger, I didn't realize how lucky I was to spend so much time with my family. For a certain stretch of years, I would both read for an hour with my maternal grandfather, and sleep over at my paternal grandmother's house each week, every week. It's only in telling people about the books I've read with my grandfather, in listing the board games I would play with my grandmother between episodes of Jeopardy and American Idol, that I realize not everyone has such vivid, unique memories of their grandparents.
I love ramen noodles so much because I remember sitting at the kitchen table after school with my grandmother, eating beef flavor ramen noodles out of a white plastic bowl with blue flowers all over the rim. I love to read books from the "classics" section of the library when I can because I remember alternating reading out loud pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin with my grandfather, sitting upside-down on the couch with my head almost on the floor and laughing as he read and I watched his upside-down mouth move as if it were its own face.
When I was probably about seven years old, I realized that despite what I wanted, my dad wasn't coming to the father-daughter dance at my school. I was dressed up in an cowgirl-esque outfit my mom had helped me choose, and I cried when my grandfather said he would take me instead. I only wanted to be the same as everyone else; wouldn't people laugh at a girl whose grandfather took her to the dance instead of her actual father? I don't really remember the dance, but I look happy in the pictures. My grandfather probably asked me to play the CanCan on the piano as we got ready to leave in order to help me feel better. I'm sure that it worked.
When I first decided to come to California, I was intent on erasing all things I was used to. Home was a place I felt to be only suffocating, and I wanted California to be a fresh start. Immersing myself in the restaurant industry and the breathlessness of city life, I learned to survive in the same way I survived when I was abroad--I forgot about everything I was while at home, focusing instead on seeing and tasting all the newness that San Francisco had to offer. Of course I didn't find answers like I had planned; instead I found a new routine, new ways to question myself, and an increasing desire to pursue something else, to find something newer.
But it's weird, the way memories of home, of a past life will sneak up on you sometimes. In a little part it's the way my cousin expresses jealousy of how much time I have gotten to spend so geographically close to the bulk of our family, in another part it's telling stories of my relatives in hopes of somehow projecting their images onto someone else's brain, in another it's feeling surprised at hidden happy stories of home, of how wrong it was to assume that just because I don't want to live in Maryland that I never want to think of it again.
My friends seem to be proud of who I've become, my family tells me sometimes that they're impressed by the decisions I've made leading up to now. Sometimes I feel like the person I've always been, and other times I feel like someone completely different. My roommate texted me today, saying that she's been thinking about the article I wrote on Medium, the one describing home as experiences, explaining why home isn't the location, but the things you do there, and the friends you make, and the memories you keep. After I wrote that article, Max was here, and he couldn't understand why I was so distant, why San Francisco seemed to catch hold of me when I had just written about the idea that locations make no difference to our feelings of satisfaction and of home. I stopped thinking about that article when I couldn't offer him an explanation. But it's no less true, despite my efforts to keep my definition of home away from a place and despite the sweet memories of my childhood in Maryland contradicting the feelings of hatred for my hometown that inspired that article in the first place.
I used to think that life would be better if I let my past self disappear, if I made myself into a true blank slate and opened myself to new experiences in the best way I knew how. It took a while to understand that my past is valuable; it's interesting in the way I can take stories off the shelf of my memories and tell them slowly, letting each detail slip out of my mouth in a way that's colorful. Not everyone has stories about playing the London Game with their grandparents on Friday nights. Right?
We all have a story. I don't want mine to vanish, in the way that so many things do, without warning just ceasing to exist. The regular nights of reading with my grandfather have disappeared in the same way that I have grown up--all of a sudden. In the blink of an eye, I suddenly wasn't playing the CanCan every Monday night as my grandfather entered and exited the front door of my house. Before I could realize that I would miss the way his eyes moved quickly over the page as he read, our reading nights ceased to be reality. After all, every memory is an experience that was, but now simply isn't.
I love ramen noodles so much because I remember sitting at the kitchen table after school with my grandmother, eating beef flavor ramen noodles out of a white plastic bowl with blue flowers all over the rim. I love to read books from the "classics" section of the library when I can because I remember alternating reading out loud pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin with my grandfather, sitting upside-down on the couch with my head almost on the floor and laughing as he read and I watched his upside-down mouth move as if it were its own face.
When I was probably about seven years old, I realized that despite what I wanted, my dad wasn't coming to the father-daughter dance at my school. I was dressed up in an cowgirl-esque outfit my mom had helped me choose, and I cried when my grandfather said he would take me instead. I only wanted to be the same as everyone else; wouldn't people laugh at a girl whose grandfather took her to the dance instead of her actual father? I don't really remember the dance, but I look happy in the pictures. My grandfather probably asked me to play the CanCan on the piano as we got ready to leave in order to help me feel better. I'm sure that it worked.
When I first decided to come to California, I was intent on erasing all things I was used to. Home was a place I felt to be only suffocating, and I wanted California to be a fresh start. Immersing myself in the restaurant industry and the breathlessness of city life, I learned to survive in the same way I survived when I was abroad--I forgot about everything I was while at home, focusing instead on seeing and tasting all the newness that San Francisco had to offer. Of course I didn't find answers like I had planned; instead I found a new routine, new ways to question myself, and an increasing desire to pursue something else, to find something newer.
But it's weird, the way memories of home, of a past life will sneak up on you sometimes. In a little part it's the way my cousin expresses jealousy of how much time I have gotten to spend so geographically close to the bulk of our family, in another part it's telling stories of my relatives in hopes of somehow projecting their images onto someone else's brain, in another it's feeling surprised at hidden happy stories of home, of how wrong it was to assume that just because I don't want to live in Maryland that I never want to think of it again.
My friends seem to be proud of who I've become, my family tells me sometimes that they're impressed by the decisions I've made leading up to now. Sometimes I feel like the person I've always been, and other times I feel like someone completely different. My roommate texted me today, saying that she's been thinking about the article I wrote on Medium, the one describing home as experiences, explaining why home isn't the location, but the things you do there, and the friends you make, and the memories you keep. After I wrote that article, Max was here, and he couldn't understand why I was so distant, why San Francisco seemed to catch hold of me when I had just written about the idea that locations make no difference to our feelings of satisfaction and of home. I stopped thinking about that article when I couldn't offer him an explanation. But it's no less true, despite my efforts to keep my definition of home away from a place and despite the sweet memories of my childhood in Maryland contradicting the feelings of hatred for my hometown that inspired that article in the first place.
I used to think that life would be better if I let my past self disappear, if I made myself into a true blank slate and opened myself to new experiences in the best way I knew how. It took a while to understand that my past is valuable; it's interesting in the way I can take stories off the shelf of my memories and tell them slowly, letting each detail slip out of my mouth in a way that's colorful. Not everyone has stories about playing the London Game with their grandparents on Friday nights. Right?
We all have a story. I don't want mine to vanish, in the way that so many things do, without warning just ceasing to exist. The regular nights of reading with my grandfather have disappeared in the same way that I have grown up--all of a sudden. In the blink of an eye, I suddenly wasn't playing the CanCan every Monday night as my grandfather entered and exited the front door of my house. Before I could realize that I would miss the way his eyes moved quickly over the page as he read, our reading nights ceased to be reality. After all, every memory is an experience that was, but now simply isn't.
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