As I sit stationary at the red light just north of Tennessee street, my hand hovers under the indicator before I remember that I am not heading back to my apartment, that I don’t have an apartment anymore; despite what my bank lists as my billing address, I no longer live across from that biscuit company just off the edge of campus. I am, suddenly, a visitor here.

(*New reminder: change billing address after publishing blog post)

In much the same way, some days after arriving back in my hometown, I headed to my Sethi’s house, passed her mailbox at a swift 24 mph and, without one single ounce of hesitation, indicated right and started turning into the driveway of my childhood home, a home which no longer stands, in its place a house twice the size and half the beauty of the one in which I so vividly remember growing up.

In that house (well, more accurately behind that house, between that house and the bay), my younger brother and I threw parties (I’m reluctant to claim that we “hosted” parties because “hosted” seems more suited for soirées and gatherings of a… different caliber; upon remembering a sort of wax splatter on the kitchen ceiling, a result of an incident involving an airsoft gun and a candle… so I’m told…, I’m inclined to stick with “threw.” Yeah, we threw a few parties) when my parents left town.

More accurately still, it was in that house that I often found myself pulling my brother aside in a display of (mostly) feigned anger when I returned home at a far-too-decent hour for a Friday night to find him and tens of his friends gathered around a smattering of red solo cups on the dinner table, the party having just started. I always knew about a party a few hundred feet before entering our garage (to his credit, he was quite diligent about keeping my garage space unobstructed) because of the cars that lined our street, a main artery of the neighborhood. Most Saturdays throughout high school, I rose at 6am to start training at 7. My brother, to whom I often refer as my best friend in a more honest way than I can ever expect anyone to grasp, used to engage in a sort of performative argument on these nights; it was a ritual I remember fondly, one I wish I would have known I would miss, one whose scripted nature we never outwardly acknowledged: I happily played the role of the accountable older sister chiding her reckless younger brother, neither getting overly upset, both forgiving and kind, coming to an easy compromise. I remember closing my door on those nights and sleeping soundly; I remember smiling as I drifted off, thinking about how much fun my precious, sweet brother was having because I, the one in charge, so graciously allowed him to. I loved (and still love) (and will continue to love for as long as I possibly can) playing the role of responsible yet cool older sister.

It was in that house I remember reminding my dad, as he tucked me in each night, “make sure you lock all the doors.”

And it was to that house I returned when Covid-19 put a premature end to my first year away from home.

It was that house I snuck boys into. (Sorry, Mom!)

That was the first driveway I ever drove out of, on my own, at 16-years-old and so many times thereafter. It was that driveway to which I returned, safe and sound, every time. 

When was the last time I drove out of that driveway, anyway? Where was I going? Did I know it would be the last time? Does that matter if I can’t remember it now?

In the midst of my own “trying to be a real adult” phase — the one I’m hoping lots of other 23-year-olds encounter before they turn 30 and realize they never should have tried so hard to get grown up — I am tempted to split hairs here and qualify my own self-awareness by writing that this house was never “my” house because I wasn’t paying for it (lots of my concept of independence is tangled up with finances these days, forgive me) but this absolutely was my house. And it was a home for my family.

And it’s not anymore.

But my body doesn’t know that and so yeah, in much the same way that I drove straight past my grandmother’s house some weeks ago, I, just today, caught myself in the nick of time, before I took that right-hand turn onto Tennessee street.

Why does Tallahassee seem to get more special to me as time passes? What is it about time passing that freezes these memories behind increasingly rose-tinted panes? Was it actually that good?

And the names of these places and these streets seem too obvious to me. They seem far too obvious to put in my book. Not special enough. Not iconic enough. Not London or Paris or Manhattan, certainly not. What’s so funny, though, is that 

Paris is a place

Full of people 

Who think

Breakfast is a short coffee, a croissant, and three cigarettes at 11am

And I think

perhaps

we should visit

Places unfamiliar.

This way,

You may be confused about how you should act

And you may just panic

And end up being yourself

You may just chop your hair and return a little bit ugly

And I so thoroughly enjoyed my 5-hours-and-53-minutes drive from Sarasota to Tallahassee, ‘on the backroads.’ The time flew as I coasted through these small Floridian towns that just today shot me back to the small foreign towns I found so charming when I travelled through them on crowded buses and in strangers’ cars in New Zealand.

We humans — we are all so similar, truly. And a long drive through small towns just about anywhere in the world is sure to show you that. Maybe.

What’s cool is: today was travel, too. 

I travelled across the whole world just to realize how much of the United States — for that matter, how much of Florida — I have yet to see touch taste smell hear. It occurred to me, just after I landed in Invercargill, of all places, and I used an airport landline to call a taxi and my driver happened to be a man who recalled throughout the entire (expensive) drive how he had visited all 50 states, that I had maybe visited 11. It occurred to me that I had never even counted. It is occurring to me now that I still have not counted. 

And if that isn’t the bloody definition of arrogance — ignorance? — I don’t know what is. Taking for granted, for all this time, the ability to travel the entire continental United States, with its diverse geography and demography, without ever having to show anyone a government-issued form of ID is something I am a bit embarrassed to admit. 

Lots of people, lots of artists and athletes from lesser-known, under-resourced communities in America, publicly claim the names of their small towns, giving credit where credit is due, putting their city “on the map.” 

I don’t feel the need to do that, necessarily. Perhaps (probably) my privilege has afforded me the comfort of a sense of place in many different places, not having to prove myself worthy of another city’s time and protection and love.  Maybe I’m too embarrassed to be proud of where I come from. Maybe I’m afraid you’ll think I’m bold enough to believe I’ll “make it out,” if I over-reference my “humble roots.” 

What’s true, thank goodness, is that even if I did take that right-hand turn onto Tennessee today, I could have still gotten to where I needed to go. 

Great Artists Steal

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, or something like that … right?