I'm definitely my father's child, because my thoughts and emotions have been wrapped in real estate this weekend.
My brother showed me a brochure today. Actually, he didn't show it to me. I threw open his bedroom door uninvited, and began interrogating him and picking up random things on his floor, including a real estate brochure. It took me a second to figure out what was going on. "Is thi ---" I couldn't even fully ask the question, so he told me. "Yup, the house." He had recently returned from a jaunt over to Chicago and had taken it upon himself to go investigate what was happening with our old house. The guy who bought it from my family paid the price of the land, renovated the whole house (I'm talking GUTTED IT) and put it back on the market. For three times the price (again, as a G, I am embittered). I was looking at the pictures and it was like this whole sector of my childhood was totally inverted. I mean, this is the ONLY HOUSE I grew up in. Every memory I have was there. It's one thing to renovate the house, but to put the front door where the back door was? Put the back door where the front door was... you changed my ADDRESS, man! Give me my house back!
There were only about 7 pictures to torment myself with. The office above the garage that I spent some of my most precious time in, sifting through shelves of amazing books and making mix tapes for plane rides (complete with spoken interludes) for my friends... it's gone. The garage where I stored my bikes and badminton rackets (don't ask) and rollerblades is now one with the office, one big high-ceilinged living room. Who wants to 'live' in the room where I stealthily parked my mom's car complete with Steve Prince's frozen barf splattered across the side on a cold winter's night?
Cyrus said my room survived, but didn't make it clear as to whether the walk-in closet connecting my room to Susie's did as well. I really didn't prod him as much as I should have for answers. Will the new inhabitants be able to launch surprise attacks via the connecting closet -- throwing open the doors (which had no locks) and beating the holy hell out of their siblings? And if not, I ask you, what kind of childhood can they be expected to have, *really*? Have they changed the windows, or can some frustrated teenager still prop her Thighmaster on the windowsill and use it to catapult random shit into the backyard? Are the tape marks still there from where I lined my closet with shirtless photos of Bret Michaels, Slash and Axl, Sebastian Bach, and the Robinson Brothers in a mudbath? (Yes. Together. This never struck me as strange until I typed these words.)
The kitchen is remodeled, too. I looked at the picture and can't even envision where I hid out when Ella's (our old babysitter) boyfriend's wife (Oooooops) came over, rang the doorbell, and knocked her one. The room where I'd watch our young neighbor make her way across the backyard with her red wagon in tow. The place where, as in any good Persian family, social life centered. Where we'd congregate after returning from (or throwing) a mehmooni (party) and rehash the entire night and the psychology (or psychosis) of each and every attendee. The kitchen where I got my first college acceptance (Indiana U) and where I had my last cup of coffee with [and ever saw] my friend Sam.
I've always been glad that we moved out of Highland Park. That's never been a question. For all my blogistic dramaticism, I *hated* living in that town, and was only too happy to flee the walls of that house. When I moved to California, I really cut the cord. I realized that you need to put the past behind you and move forward and be open to opportunities and they will find you (hello ocean view, sunny winters of 70 degrees, and Life with Pele). But today was a quick trip in a rickety time machine, and it definitely threw me for a loop.
Glad I got that out.
But as long as we're living in the now... I returned to my apartment in the afternoon and just absorbed where my life is centered now. Pulling back all the blinds, I had a new appreciation for my distant view of the bay. Water has always calmed me. People think it's my newcomer reaction to being by the ocean, but I find it tranquilizing in all forms. It could be the ocean. Or a lake. Or a lilypond or a fountain. (The toilet is pushing it). Then the thought set in that they're going to build in front of my view. A thirty story building, no less. I suppose I'm being "glass-is-half-empty" today. Which is fine. It happens. I suppose that instead of bitching about the past and worrying about the future I should get on making some new memories in the homes I now occupy (minds OUT of the gutter on the count of three...)
Hm. Bright note, bright note... This weekend I saw a good friend of mine who just got married. She is a living testament to the fact that people who question whether love even exists can find not only that love does exist, but subsequently fall deeply in it. She broke her gaze from her hubby (who is awesome and certainly has the Lilly stamp of approval) only to do sake bombs and tell me that there's someone out there for everyone.
Happy note.
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