Something Like
Homecoming. That’s it.
I’m back in Beachtown. It's been about three minutes since I stepped into this apartment, this place presided over by this Dangercat, (presently yelling and twining himself all around my legs), and it’s weird: A few weeks’ absence isn’t that lengthy a stretch of time, but when I opened my apartment door, extremely unwieldy suitcase in tow, and looked up that mammoth staircase, I inhaled sharply. I swear it surprised me, Henshaw, to see everything still there, that brown, shiny banister and the horrible fluorescent lighting and the dust.
I breathed it in, and breathing it in made me think these exact words with sort of a detached wonderment.
“It smells just like my old life.”
My first weeks and first semester here, a time which, as I pulled the giant suitcase up those 32-million steps, came rushing back in a disjointed and distant little montage (Thunk, thunk, thunk, went the suitcase.) Everything so far away, feeling about as personally related to me as do childhood memories that your elder relatives tell you about: “You remember that, don’t you?”
Sure, I do. Sure. Absolutely.
The feeling didn’t cease once I came inside. My belongings, all these books on this cherry-wood shelf, this black-and-white photograph positioned just so, currently far above the head of the little furry beast loudly proclaiming its ownership over me; someone named me once put these things together in this space and decided it was home, which, at the moment feels, not sadly, but utterly, ludicrous.
Homecoming. That’s it.
I’m back in Beachtown. It's been about three minutes since I stepped into this apartment, this place presided over by this Dangercat, (presently yelling and twining himself all around my legs), and it’s weird: A few weeks’ absence isn’t that lengthy a stretch of time, but when I opened my apartment door, extremely unwieldy suitcase in tow, and looked up that mammoth staircase, I inhaled sharply. I swear it surprised me, Henshaw, to see everything still there, that brown, shiny banister and the horrible fluorescent lighting and the dust.
I breathed it in, and breathing it in made me think these exact words with sort of a detached wonderment.
“It smells just like my old life.”
My first weeks and first semester here, a time which, as I pulled the giant suitcase up those 32-million steps, came rushing back in a disjointed and distant little montage (Thunk, thunk, thunk, went the suitcase.) Everything so far away, feeling about as personally related to me as do childhood memories that your elder relatives tell you about: “You remember that, don’t you?”
Sure, I do. Sure. Absolutely.
The feeling didn’t cease once I came inside. My belongings, all these books on this cherry-wood shelf, this black-and-white photograph positioned just so, currently far above the head of the little furry beast loudly proclaiming its ownership over me; someone named me once put these things together in this space and decided it was home, which, at the moment feels, not sadly, but utterly, ludicrous.
posted by Alice at 9:55 PM
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