Home, Part I

I do not remember the first house I lived in. All that I know of it comes from my parent’s stories and a yellow, faded photograph or two I will occasionally find tucked away in an old box of mementos.

We left that house when I was just 14 months old. Our family of three headed East to follow my father’s job; and my parents set to work house-hunting, my banana and yogurt loving self along for the ride. It was my mother who discovered the town in which we would eventually live. Out for a drive, looking at neighborhoods, she just kept going. She drove away from the strip malls and highways and cookie-cutter developments, until she stumbled upon a little farmland oasis right in the heart of the Pinelands of New Jersey.

This is the first house I remember. Green with black shutters, the third house on the left. We had a stone driveway, filled with small purplish colored rocks that seemed to bite at my feet when I’d try to walk across barefoot. This was the house I brought my kitten, Rooster, home to after we rescued him from the shelter and where our Irish Setter, Blarney, would spend hours lazying on the front lawn, tongue wagging incessantly.

The seasons determined if I spent the majority of my time in our front or back yard. For some reason, the backyard was most utilized in the spring and fall. For hours upon hours I would play on our little metal swing set, singing songs from The Sound of Music to whoever would listen – my father, my mother, Rooster the cat, the trees. In the summer I gravitated toward our front yard, running through the sprinkler Mom set up on the grass or splashing in the plastic kiddy pool Dad brought home from the store one Saturday afternoon. In the winter, Dad and I made snowmen in our front yard, decorated with one of Dad’s old ties and a St. Louis Cardinals knit ski cap.

My bedroom faced out onto the street. To get there I'd climb to the top of the stairs, run past the guest rooms and bathroom and my parents room, rounding the bend to my little room; filled with my yellow “grown up” furniture and wallpapered in a pretty peach floral pattern. That little room suited me just fine, but what I really wanted – what I’d decided MUST happen when I got to be a little older – was a move into the third bedroom at the top of the stairs. Oh, that room mystified me so! I adored its slightly abnormal shape and the fact that it had not one, but two closets. There was another bedroom too, one that functioned as a guestroom for our first five years in that house. On February 26, 1985, however, it became my baby brother’s room. Lying awake, listening to my parents trying to soothe the little guy who never stopped crying, I was grateful to sleep further down the hall, as far away from his woes as possible. As I listened to his fitful, jaundiced cries I suddenly wasn’t so eager to move into that funky little room right next to his. I stopped suggesting this option aloud.

But oh, once he outgrew the crying infant stage, what adventures my brother and I got ourselves into in that house! We would dig for toads in the damp earth of the basement window wells each spring. “I found one!” Stephen and I would yell, running with cupped hands to show Dad our slimy prize before he hopped away. One morning, I reached into a pile of leaves in one well, sure I’d spotted a toad. It wasn't until I touched him that I realized I was touching his molted skin only, there was no toad. Years and years later I can still recall how fast I recoiled my hand in horror. And that became the end of our hunting for toads in the window wells game. In the summer, we spent countless hours playing on our screened in back porch and running around the brick patio my mother had built herself. Our family spent so many peaceful evenings on that patio, dining at the red picnic table, Stephen and I chasing fireflies through the yard once the sun finally set.

When the weather wasn’t cooperative to outdoor play, down into the labyrinth that was our basement we would go. This basement. We had a finished playroom, an unfinished storage area, a finished walk-in closet that I know my mother has missed in every house she’s had since, and another finished den area, complete with a mini bar. I loved to play restaurant from behind that mini-bar and was constantly coercing my family to come downstairs and be my customer. Not too long ago, I found an old fake check my father had written during one of those evenings. “To: Kelli’s Restaurant, Amount paid: $0.25, For: One Rootbeer Float.”

This house held our birthday parties, my very first sleep over birthday party, our anticipatory Christmas Eves and our thrilling Christmas Mornings. It was where Dad helped me carve pumpkins…or, where Dad carved pumpkins and I directed, where Mom pretended to be Julia Child in the kitchen while stuffing the Thanksgiving turkey, where Stevie and I stayed up late one Christmas Eve covered head to toe in flour while we baked holiday cookies with Mom and Dad. It’s the house that is in the background of so many photos Mom took during those years; it’s the house that makes a brief appearance in all of Dad’s home videos. It’s what the school bus would drive by each morning and each afternoon, it’s the driveway Mom would turn into each afternoon, home after my ballet or piano lessons.

When I was eight, I went to one of my first sleepover parties. I grew homesick that night away from my family and crawled into my sleeping bag sad and lonely; wishing I was back home. When Mom picked me up the next morning, she asked how the party had been. “Okay, I guess” was my reply, not elaborating further. When we got home, Dad was in the kitchen with Stephen. He too asked how the party had been. I started to cry. I plopped down at the kitchen table and told my parents between my sobs how homesick I had been. “This house,” I cried. “This house is where I want to be! I know every room, every space. I could lead you around blindfolded if I had to! I didn’t want to be at Emily’s last night; I wanted to be here!" Mom and Dad tried to comfort me, saying they understood. After a glass of chocolate milk, I seemed to be in better spirits and left the kitchen table to go play outside with Stephen. Before walking out of the kitchen, I turned back to Mom and Dad. "It's just that this house? This is my home, you know?"