Deep in the last century,
Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can't Go Home Again,” and, of course, he
was right. The thousands of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was our
lives have long since been scattered to the winds never to be
reclaimed, at least not in a way that we remember them. Too much has
changed, too many people from those days have moved on, too much has
been forgotten. But sometimes, if we're lucky, we can catch a
glimpse of what was, and sometimes it can seem incredibly real and
incredibly immediate. Such was my good fortune recently when I
visited my boyhood home in White Plains, New York. What I hoped
would be a glimmer of my past turned out to be as close to time
travel as anything I am likely to experience in my lifetime.
It has been on my bucket
list for some time to return to my old home. I'm not sure why,
really. Likely a nice blending of sentimentality and curiosity. As
it is for so many, the home in which we spent our childhood has a
special place in our hearts. The memories are sweet; there's a
certain serenity and warmth associated with it. We were young and
felt protected. And, with those thoughts in mind, I wrote a letter
to the occupants not knowing who they were. After all, my family
left the house a half century ago. In the letter, I introduced
myself, explained my interest and included copies of some old photos
showing me as a child in front of the house to prove my bona fides.
I was delighted with the response which was both prompt and
enthusiastic. What I had not bargained for, or remotely considered,
was that the folks to whom my parents sold the house a half century
ago still lived there. I was stunned. And, that fact added to my
urgency in making the visit that I had long hoped for. Lily and I
had a long planned visit to the New York area to visit close friends
and the opportunity to re-visit the past now beckoned.
We headed up to White
Plains with our friends, Tom and Ellen. Our path took us up the
Bronx River Parkway, a scenic, bending and generally lush path
through Westchester County that I recalled with such great fondness
from my youth. We passed through Mt. Vernon, Bronxville, Tuckahoe,
and Crestwood each mile seeming more and more familiar to me. When
we ducked in to White Plains, there was so much I did not recognize.
The city has exploded from what was once a nice suburban outlier to
now a thriving metropolis with soaring towers, wide boulevards, and a
host of gleaming new buildings. Ah, but the street names were the
same, and as we worked our way from downtown to my old neighborhood,
I ticked off all those very familiar, but long lost, guideposts:
Main Street, South Lexington Avenue, Martine Avenue, Post Road,
Bryant Avenue, and then Ogden Avenue. As we approached my old block
of Ogden Avenue, I was caught up in a euphoria we don't often get to
enjoy. And, when we reached the block on which my old house stands,
I realized I was holding my breath. How do you explain to someone
what it's like to have memories come to life? To take form and move
and not just be imprints that you have held inside for decades.
I got out of the car and
was met by Amy, the daughter of Irving and Rita – the home owners.
I must tell you that when I entered the house it took my breath away.
I touched the walls as if they were life forms, not just wood and
plaster. It was all the same as when we left it. Yes, the walls
were different colors, but the structure was the same. It was an
emotional moment for me. Irving and Rita spoke of Sam (my father)
and Susan (my sister) as if they had seen them just a week ago, like
time had never passed. They invited me to take the tour, and, as I
did, I noticed certain things. There was a wall sconce in the living
room that was there when we lived there. I used to remove the light
bulbs when my parents weren't home, use the sconce as a basket, and
would crumple up a wad of paper as a basketball and play games that
were feverishly real to me. I pointed to the old cabinets in the
living room which were still there and laughingly said that one of
them was my folks' liquor cabinet. They advised me it was theirs as
well. In the back, behind the living room, was what we called the TV
room, and it was still called that so many years later. They asked
me if I remembered the dining room wall paper, and I did. It was
coral with images of a white leopard. That paper was gone from
there, but they opened the hall closet and there it was – the same
wallpaper – lining the closet. Upstairs, my bedroom was exactly
the same as when I left it, except for the furniture. The wood
paneled walls, the cabinets, the shelves – all the same, never
altered. I sat on the bed and looked out over Ogden Avenue and a
thousand micro-memories flashed through my head like so many
life-filled electrons jabbing at my memory bank.
Even the bathroom, now one
of the most changed rooms in the house, brought back a memory long
lost to me. When I was a boy, I was plagued by a bronchial condition
that often would compromise my breathing. It provided me with the
scariest of moments I can recall from my youth when I was not sure
where my next breath was coming from. In those dark moments, my
parents would usher me into that bathroom where they had turned on
the shower to create a steam room atmosphere in the hopes it would
ease my breathing. In one such episode, I recall being there with my
father and I told him I couldn't breathe. He gave me a long kiss
which I realized years later was because he thought, in that moment,
he was losing me; that I was dying. I hadn't brought back that
memory in decades, but there it was.
On the way out of the
house, I stopped to acknowledge the Japanese maple tree in the front
yard. We had planted that tree so many years ago, and, as a child, I
watched it grow as I did and marveled when it surpassed my height on
its way to a glory I could only imagine. Now, it is fully mature.
It towers over the yard with a massive trunk and boughs reaching
upwards, far away. In what I can only characterize as an impromptu
moment of perfect blending between sentimentality and
anthropomorphism, I found myself giving the tree a hug and giving the
bark a kiss. Clearly, I was lost in the moment.
I said good-bye to the
wonderfully gracious Irving, Rita and Amy and returned to the real
world.
But, what a memory.
