Home
The word home has many meanings to many people. After many years this word means a lot of things to me as well. It has a personal meaning, it holds a value I want to teach my children, it holds a desire for a place I want to build with my husband, but it also holds a sacred, spiritual deep-rooted meaning. 210 Kayton will always be home. It is not necessarily where I was raised, nor is it where I was born, I never lived her for an extended period of time, yet there is no place on earth which truly resonates to me as being “home”. As I sit here, looking around at the beauty of its simplicity. The unfinished projects, that now welcome me, reminding me of the man who began them, was known for never finishing them, and now years later never will; I see them and embrace their flaws and imperfections. Walls have been added, painted, and redone but there is no hiding the years of childhood they have created. You can feel the laughter and the playfulness in the air. There is always a hint of bleach, a plastic cover and a watchful eye to keep things in their spot, and it is welcomed and held tight like the string of a kite blowing away in a wind of adulthood trying to erase what was once there. As I walk across the floor I hear creak and after creak in the worn hard wood, it takes me back thirty years and I am transformed into a softer time, the walls are yellow, the wood is fresher and he is there with that big loud laugh, pretending to play the drum and fats domino is playing. I am a little girl now laughing and twirling to the sound. She cheers on from the side and all in the world is right. I am immune to the harsh reality of life, to why I am even in this room in the first place, and to what lies ahead. As I look now at the same room, with newer furniture, fresher paint and he is now a picture on the shelf, I softly twirl as an adult, a mom, a wife, and it feels oddly like it was yesterday. Even though there are newer and modern touches here and there, she can still be seen in the mornings with the same rosary and in the same corner. It is still where everyone gathers, four generations later, and we share the same laughters and tears here. By the new stove is the same wooden spoon from thirty years before, by the computer and printer is the same fedora hat he wore day to day, with the slight hint of his Marlboro red. Her hands are older and tired and these days we bring her the fresh tortillas and store bought beans, but every now and then you can come in to the sweet aroma that only comes from this kitchen and from her hands. This was not where I was born, nor was it where I was raised, but it is and always will be where I can come. it is my center, my constant, my security. It is the only place where I can truly exhale, truly. It is where I never really leave, a part of my soul stays here and when I am gone the two parts long to be together. They earn and ache for each other like old lovers. When the hardships of life’s storms come at me my heart and soul long for these walls and the part of me that is still here. 210 Kayton never leaves me either, it is always with me, it is my conscious, it is the small voice in my head pushing me forward and never allowing me to give up. Coming back and allowing my soul and heart to reunite with itself is what reminds me of who I am, embracing the creak in the floor, the smell of the sheets, the laughter in the walls is what keeps me sane, and is what will always give me a place to call home.
