Hanahome
"Jules, you're zoning out again. Where do you go when you do that?" Other places. Other times. My best friend Laura is calling me back to my head. I've just been thinking about my future. Hopes, dreams. We'd been talking about plans after high school. All the things we wanted to do. I pictured myself coming home from some Very Important Job, dark outside and maybe a little cool snap in the air. The glow of the interior lights crosses my path in a swatch of gold and I can hear all the noise inside already. I get to stop and look into the heart of a home bustling with stuff to do. With a family.
***
It's summer. I'm 16. 12. 8. From the earliest memories I recall that feeling, that thing way down deep in my bones when I was coming home at night. Green highway signs flash and I know them because I practiced reading them when I first started reading. Each turn the wheels make is as familiar as the bath and bedtime routine that will be following soon. Well manicured lawns line the road, and I feel the spot where the speed limit reduces so mom's foot comes off the gas. I know exactly how far I am from the driveway without even thinking it.
We make the turn onto the road. Headlights illuminate the trees, each one familiar as a sentry in the half mile of darkness to the driveway. The slow, the turn, the crunch of gravel under tires. The feeling that I'd gone out into the world and accomplished something, and my reward is to return.
Tonight I'm 16 and in the front seat. It's just mom and I out, and when we pull in I see a whole wealth of love. The farmhouse windows glow and inside I can see the neighbors have stopped to see dad. Chris's girlfriend's car is in the driveway. The barn is lit up and several of his friends are wrenching on whatever project car they've picked up. Mom hurries up the sidewalk after parking and disappears into the house. I have school books in the back and a moment to myself so I drag my feet.
There was this weird cement block at the end of the sidewalk with an old iron ring sunk deep into it. This was where they tied up horses back when the house was first built in the late 1800s. I stand on it, in all my teenage glory and survey the scene. I could go inside, up to my room and close myself off and no one would bother me. I could go talk with the neighbors who will undoubtedly ask me all sorts of things about my life, which makes me feel special. I could go to the barn and be a nuisance.
My hands sink into the pockets of my jeans and I don't move. For a moment I don't want to make a choice, I like that I get to silently observe. I can hear the loud laughter in the barn, the random cursing. I can see my parents laughing with close friends. I feel the deepest sense of home without understanding what it was and without knowing I would spend many, many years trying to find it again.
"How do you flashback like that?" I'm in his kitchen and he's looking at me. I've zoned out again. It's a gift. It's a curse. It just happens. S is on the couch on her phone, the kids all around doing their own things. I've spent the day cleaning the house and feeling invested. I'd just stuck macaroni and cheese in my mouth and been struck by the enveloping sense of familiarity. Nothing felt weird or jarring or out of place. I could have heard gravel crunching under tires in that moment and felt it fit before realizing there was no gravel around.
It occurs to me then. It's pouring in. That feeling. That dangerous, seductive, powerful feeling that I belong here. That I was meant for here. That this is home.
***
She's driving us to the store quickly to grab a tote and some dinner. My phone is constantly vibrating with people I've only recently met in the area asking if I want to get together some time to hang out. Just that, just hanging out. They say it so casually like I haven't just spent so long in a city where people don't hang out and the idea is completely heart warming. All it would take is a single yes and my social calendar would fill up in rapid fire succession.
I'm apologizing in a message bubble that I don't have enough time on this visit to meet a new friend for coffee, but that I very much want to when I lift my head and sense familiarity creeping in. S is driving and R is already asleep in the back. We're talking intermittently until I put my phone down and let the moment wash over me. I feel good doing this, being here. I feel like a partner to her for our mutual love of T.
If I think I'm content and happy now, it's leveled up on the return drive. He calls her, and I giggle when she tries to come up with a way to convey that she's bringing me to their house. Home. Home 2. Hanahome. I like that he calls her on his way home. I like that long standing affection disguised as practical communication.
He knows I'm in the car with her, that I heard her say when he'd be home. And yet my phone rings. He's giving me the same consideration, he's giving me equal treatment. I'm touched. I struggle with words. They don't convey feelings well enough. But what I felt was powerful. Even in the moment I found myself at a loss. He was showing me where I was standing and my brain couldn't process the emotion fast enough.
Belonging. Home. Even apart from them now I feel it. I'm never really gone. Never wholly departed. Just away for a few moments.
***
I feel so many things about the future. It's big and there are so many possibilities within my scope now that I can barely count them all.
I can see my way home, and I think I just felt her foot come off the gas pedal a little...
***
It's summer. I'm 16. 12. 8. From the earliest memories I recall that feeling, that thing way down deep in my bones when I was coming home at night. Green highway signs flash and I know them because I practiced reading them when I first started reading. Each turn the wheels make is as familiar as the bath and bedtime routine that will be following soon. Well manicured lawns line the road, and I feel the spot where the speed limit reduces so mom's foot comes off the gas. I know exactly how far I am from the driveway without even thinking it.
We make the turn onto the road. Headlights illuminate the trees, each one familiar as a sentry in the half mile of darkness to the driveway. The slow, the turn, the crunch of gravel under tires. The feeling that I'd gone out into the world and accomplished something, and my reward is to return.
Tonight I'm 16 and in the front seat. It's just mom and I out, and when we pull in I see a whole wealth of love. The farmhouse windows glow and inside I can see the neighbors have stopped to see dad. Chris's girlfriend's car is in the driveway. The barn is lit up and several of his friends are wrenching on whatever project car they've picked up. Mom hurries up the sidewalk after parking and disappears into the house. I have school books in the back and a moment to myself so I drag my feet.
There was this weird cement block at the end of the sidewalk with an old iron ring sunk deep into it. This was where they tied up horses back when the house was first built in the late 1800s. I stand on it, in all my teenage glory and survey the scene. I could go inside, up to my room and close myself off and no one would bother me. I could go talk with the neighbors who will undoubtedly ask me all sorts of things about my life, which makes me feel special. I could go to the barn and be a nuisance.
My hands sink into the pockets of my jeans and I don't move. For a moment I don't want to make a choice, I like that I get to silently observe. I can hear the loud laughter in the barn, the random cursing. I can see my parents laughing with close friends. I feel the deepest sense of home without understanding what it was and without knowing I would spend many, many years trying to find it again.
"How do you flashback like that?" I'm in his kitchen and he's looking at me. I've zoned out again. It's a gift. It's a curse. It just happens. S is on the couch on her phone, the kids all around doing their own things. I've spent the day cleaning the house and feeling invested. I'd just stuck macaroni and cheese in my mouth and been struck by the enveloping sense of familiarity. Nothing felt weird or jarring or out of place. I could have heard gravel crunching under tires in that moment and felt it fit before realizing there was no gravel around.
It occurs to me then. It's pouring in. That feeling. That dangerous, seductive, powerful feeling that I belong here. That I was meant for here. That this is home.
***
She's driving us to the store quickly to grab a tote and some dinner. My phone is constantly vibrating with people I've only recently met in the area asking if I want to get together some time to hang out. Just that, just hanging out. They say it so casually like I haven't just spent so long in a city where people don't hang out and the idea is completely heart warming. All it would take is a single yes and my social calendar would fill up in rapid fire succession.
I'm apologizing in a message bubble that I don't have enough time on this visit to meet a new friend for coffee, but that I very much want to when I lift my head and sense familiarity creeping in. S is driving and R is already asleep in the back. We're talking intermittently until I put my phone down and let the moment wash over me. I feel good doing this, being here. I feel like a partner to her for our mutual love of T.
If I think I'm content and happy now, it's leveled up on the return drive. He calls her, and I giggle when she tries to come up with a way to convey that she's bringing me to their house. Home. Home 2. Hanahome. I like that he calls her on his way home. I like that long standing affection disguised as practical communication.
He knows I'm in the car with her, that I heard her say when he'd be home. And yet my phone rings. He's giving me the same consideration, he's giving me equal treatment. I'm touched. I struggle with words. They don't convey feelings well enough. But what I felt was powerful. Even in the moment I found myself at a loss. He was showing me where I was standing and my brain couldn't process the emotion fast enough.
Belonging. Home. Even apart from them now I feel it. I'm never really gone. Never wholly departed. Just away for a few moments.
***
I feel so many things about the future. It's big and there are so many possibilities within my scope now that I can barely count them all.
I can see my way home, and I think I just felt her foot come off the gas pedal a little...
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