Before I left my house-home and returned to my apartment-home in Charlottesville, I decided to survey my past. I did not know when I would be home again, at least not for an extended period of time, and I wanted to take something meaningful away from the walls that had surrounded me for 18 years.
The walls are stable, of course: They've held that house up for almost a century. They've only suffered minor cracks when additions were added - a sunroom here, a front porch there. They've stood strong when the house was raised 10 feet to protect the walls from water damage. They're good walls.
But I am more interested in what is on the walls than in how structurally sound they may be. I figured the easiest way to survey my past, to survey what inevitably affected me for so many years, was to see how much kitsch my mother could cram on to a stretch of wall space. It is ironic that my house used to have more walls. Sensing that things were too closed in, my mother made a suggestion - and my father obliged - and so the walls that separated our living room and dining room and kitchen and that middle place in between were all knocked out.
The irony lies in the fact that what wall space remains is covered with what I think my mother likes to think of as necessary family memorabilia. We can be closer as a family if we can see one another from across the house; we can be closer if by dragging our hands along the walls our fingers stumble across endless picture frames and bookshelves.
Walking from my kitchen to my "sunroom" - that's what you call a living room where the walls are made of windows - I measured a wall with my paces, about 22 feet. What could I gain in 22 feet? What could I learn about the first 18 years of my life in my house-home that would help me survive the next three years in apartment-homes? Pacing that 22 feet, I tripped over two chairs, one used as a stepstool in the kitchen and the other used as a temporary storage place for novels. I tripped over two cats, one used to catch rats in the barn and the other used as a foot warmer when my bed gets too cold.
I ran into our faux fireplace, a stout gas stove with fake logs glowing orange in the winter, with a black pipe running into the wall going I'm not sure where. I sat down at the end of the 22 feet - which I was starting to think was far shorter than that - at a round table on a round stool. I looked at the wall space I had just covered. It starts with two framed photos, one of my sister and me and one of my brother. It continues and turns into a bookshelf set into the wall. The bookshelf is full, of course. My mother was an English major and she's been grooming her children to read, read, read for years. So we have a lot of books.
Amid the stacked books are picture frames. No two are alike because that would be boring and boring teaches you nothing about your past. There's a heavy silver frame, the metal leaves intertwined so the vines hug the photo of my grandfather when he was a boy. There is a blue wooden frame that holds a pencil sketch of my brother when he was about 6 years old; it actually looks like him, unlike those earnest but futile attempts made by artists at carnivals. I'm not sure who drew it. Above the book shelf is a sign that says "our stuff," which is accurately placed, like all signs in our house. "Joy" comes in three pieces and sits in front of books. "Wine" bends on hinges and moves around in the sunroom. "Home" is next to a family photo at the beach.
I used to think "our stuff" was tacky, and the way the block colors behind "S" and "ff" clash still makes me think it is. But "our" sounds like more than one, and I wonder if I can take this beautifully tacky wholeness back to my apartment-home. Is home really home if everything that has defined that word for so many years is not present in its new location?
I continued looking at the wall, my eyes finally resting on the collection of black and white photos above the round table. In the middle of these photos is a sign: "Home is where your story begins." It could be trite but isn't. Among the black frames housing simplified photos of my family's past - just black and just white, "home" appears to be boiled down to its basics. My favorite photos in this collection were not even taken at my house. There's the one with my mother in college, hair down her back, sitting on a beach. There's my grandfather smoking a pipe on a picnic table. My brother, sister and I sitting in an amusement park ride, smiling with our mouths closed because we didn't know how else to smile.
Maybe I'll be fine in my future apartment-homes, sans photos of my past. My grandfather passed away when I was 8, my mother graduated from college, well, a while ago and I now smile with my mouth wide open. Perhaps home is only the beginning. I can feel nostalgic, but this feeling won't hold me back. I won't really have to come home anytime soon for an extended period of time. My apartment's walls are plaster. They're very sturdy.
But I will come back. Because my very favorite picture on this wall was taken at home, on my dock. My sister and I might have been 4 years old and my brother 6 months. My sister is crying, holding her head and sitting in my mother's lap. My mother is smiling looking down at her. My father is stoic, wearing aviator sunglasses, holding my brother up. My brother is giggling. I'm standing in the middle of the two chairs, hands on the arms of both, my face utterly confused, yet utterly safe.
There's something comforting about the past. Maybe it's an excuse to shirk the responsibilities of the present and of the future, but I think I'm OK with that.
Connelly's column runs weekly Thursdays. She can be reached at c.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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