Driving around the town where I grew up is a little odd sometimes. It feels like – well, I suppose it feels like driving around the town where you grew up, except that my memories of directions and locations are less conscious. I have flashbacks all the time. I was standing in Port Authority earlier today when I suddenly flashed to Mica’s face. Mica was my classmate in kindergarten. He was the bane of my existence, when I bothered to notice him, because our names were so alike. Kindergarten wasn’t too early for boyfriend jokes, and having a similar name with a blob of a boy made me a great target.
He lived in a large house that had a staircase on the side that went up to the second level. It was the first house I saw with that – I suppose it was a fire escape, or a second entrance. I only know because I went to his birthday party once (for some reason my only memory of that party is sitting on the side stairs waiting for my mother to pick me up. Hmmm).
My main memory of Mica is from kindergartan wars. The politics were horribly complicated – who claimed leadership of which team (conflict between me and Esther there), who defected (Batya taught the boys how to get to our safe spot – top of the monkeybars), when truces could be declared (playdates with Ariel, a boy from school)… and then there were the conspiracies. Like the time that I purposely got caught by the boys so that I could eavesdrop on their strategy meeting. I didn’t realize imprisonment would mean being squeezed between the fence and Mica’s back. The things we do for loyalty. Of course, later Ariel claimed that they had made up the entire strategy session just for me to hear. Like I said, it got complicated.
I’ve been driving around the area without a GPS for a fair bit. Some of that is from driving around with my sister, and some is from my memory-map of the area. But like I said, my memories of places and locations aren’t entirely conscious. I feel tugs sometimes- turn down this road, this is the right way. Which is how today, I got from the main street – down the road a former classmate lived – then down the street we lived on when we first moved to the neighborhood – and from there to the house we lived in until we left the state. Several turns, all without conscious consideration – just following the tugs. Drove down my old street. That’s the house where a family moved in the summer, maybe a year before we moved. They had an iced tea stand. It was the first time I tried Arizona Iced Tea. There’s the house with the curving walkway that I loved. That house didn’t used to be here – but that one did. I wonder what happened to the rock with our house number.
This time I knocked on the door, rang the bell. I wanted to see the backyard. I spent a lot of time in that backyard, and I want to see if the landmarks are still there. Our little garden. The cicada tree. The grapevine poles. I’d like to see the inside of the house – I’d like to see the hidden closets I loved when I was a kid, and see what memories spring from my room, from the spring kitchen, the hallways – but I don’t expect a stranger to be comfortable with me walking about the house. It was close to 5pm, but no one answered, and I didn’t want to be caught exploring a stranger’s backyard. Maybe next time, maybe over the weekend.
