Impermanence

I’ve always envied those who’ve lived in the same place their entire life. Those who were able to witness the evolution of their town, right along with their own, from birth. Those who could tell you the stories of their neighbors come and gone, what used to be where, the magic that once existed and is now replaced with widened streets and big-box chains.

It seems so idyllic to me, living in one place so long that it etches itself into your DNA. You couldn’t fathom living anywhere else, even if all you do is complain about where you are. That question of “Where are you from?” isn’t met with hesitation or guesswork about which place is more relevant for the conversation at hand. Instead, there’s certainty, and perhaps a bit of pride if you were raised right.

I used to feel that way when I lived on Gibbs Place, an oddly quiet block nestled in the southwest corner of Philly that holds the seed of my adolescent innocence. It felt like home to me. All I’d ever known. And it never occurred to me then that things could change, that I could end up living anywhere else.

I actually don’t remember how I felt when my mom sat me down one spring afternoon and told me that we were moving off the only block I’d known to a suburban town I’d never heard of. A mix of confusion and sadness tinge my memories, but the details have long since evaporated. The next thing I remember is hugging my friends goodbye and eating Papa John’s pizza with my parents in the empty shell of our new home.

The contrast in warmth was shocking to my system, and I asked my mom if it was too late to get our old house back. It was. She did her best to make it cozy for us: removing the hideous wallpaper left by the previous owner, painting a rich plum accent wall in the main living room, giving me full creative control to turn my bedroom into the princess quarters I’d always wanted.

But something was missing, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. In fact, I was fairly certain that our new home was haunted, strange sounds and eerie shadows pressing on me everywhere I went. I rarely left my bedroom at night.

I suspect what was missing was companionship, a sense of community. In this new house, my role as an only child became painfully clear. On Gibbs Place, I’d do my best to fill the rainy days and times my friends were on vacation with creative activities like coloring, having tea parties with my stuffed animals, and rummaging through my mom’s belongings when she wasn’t looking. I knew my loneliness was temporary, that my friends would return soon with fun stories to tell or that the rain would dry up and allow us to play outside again.

But in this new home, there were no doors to knock on, no familiar faces to work my charm and get my friends outside, and most egregious, no friends at all. Without me realizing it, my family’s move to our new home marked a significant turning point in my life: the full acceptance of my station as an only child and the harsh realization that all I truly had was me.

Over the years, life did what it does best, and change became a near constant. I started at a new school, then moved halfway across the country to do it all over again, this time in the cold darkness of a Midwest winter. I got used to being the new kid and, at this point, was more comfortable with spending most of my time alone. I thought less and less of Gibbs Place and focused more on my changing body, my hopeless crushes on boys who never looked my way, and the all-consuming desire for popularity.

It didn’t take too long for my first home to become all but a distant memory, a fun story to tell friends about that one random phase of life when I lived in a city they’d only seen on TV. I’d keep the stories brief, mentioning my close proximity to the airport, day trips to New York or Atlantic City, how the best Jamaican food in town came off a food truck in front of the post office downtown. I almost never talked about Gibbs Place.

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A few days ago, I took a walk on a secluded nature trail where I live now in Colorado Springs. This winter has been unseasonably warm, daily highs hovering in the 50s and 60s deep into January, so I elected to take the long way around through a thicket of pine trees, past a family of napping deer, and down to a dried-up riverbed.

As I made my final descent down the dirt path, a familiar sound stopped me dead in my tracks: the soft echoing coos of a mourning dove. And immediately I was transported back in time to that three-bedroom townhouse I shared with my parents, to our fenced-in backyard, where my first dog Weeko freed herself from captivity and I buried my hamster Samantha years later. To the front yard, separated from my neighbor’s by a healthy evergreen bush, its brambly interior saving me many times from being “It.” To Aliya and Tanya and Samiyrah and Ty and Greg and Miss Jean’s grandkids whose names I always forgot. To Miss Donna and Mr. Leroy, Miss Nannette, Miss Marguerite and Mr. Andrew. To the old man on the corner with the yappy schnauzers and the brick-and-wrought-iron fence that stuck out like a sore thumb on our otherwise unassuming block.

Me & Weeko, circa 2000. Can you tell we were best friends? /s

I was brought back to Lauren, my next-door neighbor and babysitter eight or so years my senior, who’d make me the most delectable grilled cheeses and let me watch 106 & Park every day after school. I could smell the hot dogs sizzling on the grill at our annual block parties, hear the jingle of the ice cream truck rounding the corner, and feel the blustery fall winds that always seemed to come out of nowhere and knock the power out.

I thought about riding my bike under clear-blue skies, practicing my scooter tricks over and over until my ankles were sore and bruised, playing tag and hide-and-seek in a space all us neighbor kids knew by heart, being teased relentlessly for crying so much, sneaking off the block to see what was so dangerous about the next street over.

I thought about frigid Halloweens, the winter coat my mom forced me to wear that interrupted my metamorphosis into Simba or a witch. I thought about that one house on the next block that gave out $5 bills. I thought about their neighbor who gave out apples.

All of this memory untouched for almost two decades, uncovered by the sound of a bird.

Looking back on it now, I appreciate the opportunity to experience change at such a young age, and perhaps if I think about it long enough I could write endlessly about the varied stories this kind of vagabond childhood produced. But underneath all of that, there’s something about that impermanence, that detachment from place, that half-second hesitation when someone asks where I’m from, that gnaws at me. An innocent question like that shouldn’t feel so charged, so personal, so empty. But it does.

Each time, a subtle ache radiates deep in my gut for Home, a place that looks nothing like Gibbs Place, a place I realize I’ve never been.

When I give that word “home” time to bounce between my ears, I’m always brought back to the same place: a lush, verdant rainforest nestled close to the ocean. If I close my eyes, I hear a waterfall rushing behind me, I see tree elders spreading their branches up and out like my afro. Kindred critters rush about cawing, yowling, barking, announcing that they’re still here, still participating in the miracle of life. I smell a blazing fire overlaid by the scent of roasting freshwater fish. Fresh fruit plops down at my feet, and I make eye contact with the young monkey high in the trees still learning the ropes, still getting a grasp on what it means to be alive. Me too. I leave the fruit there for him to find later. A warm ocean breeze tickles my skin and intermingles with my coarse hair, thirsty for its moisture.

This place feels ancestral, rooted in what’s real, not at all concerned with the fickle and the fleeting, the colonized and the colonizer. This, I realize, is Home.