Going Home...

There's an old phrase, "you can't go home again" that has been on my mind all weekend.

I'm "home", but not really. It feels like home, but not really. It looks like home, but not really. I want it to be home, but not really.

I flew back to where I grew up to take care of some things. Cowboy had more important commitments, so I am alone. I don't believe I have actually ever been here alone before. It's strange, wonderful and awful at the same time.

It's been 28 years since my dad and grandma graced the home; 13 years for my mom; and four for my brother, yet I feel them so distinctly, and my mind replays events and conversations so vividly as I walk through the house. I am filled with half joy and half sorrow.

I pass my Mom's art room and I picture her in there with all her paint, canvases and easels doing what she always did best - create. A more talented, imaginative creator I have yet to meet. She was a top notch seamstress, was versed in all yarn arts, including tatting, an accomplished artist who had a show at the San Diego Museum of Art and an avid scrapbooker. Every new craft she tried, she entered wholeheartedly!

I continue down the long hall and pass the huge dining table where we gathered for many a dinner and holiday with family and friends. I hear the loud, boisterous ruckus of everyone talking and laughing and trying to one up each other with the Blanchard sarcasm. We always had a lot of laughter. We were a funny bunch. I can see my brother, Vern, pointing to a "spill" on my shirt and me looking down, getting his finger up my face. I fell for it E-V-E-R-Y time ! I hear Grandma's cackle above all the other noise and wonder if Grandma's passion and affinity for chickens was derived from the fact that she sounded like one when she laughed. 

I pass the living room, the heart of our house and I picture grandma in the chair by the window, singing along with the music Grandpa and Mom were making. Grandpa had been a professional trumpeter when younger and the piano was another art my mom mastered so beautifully. The boys and I would gather round and sing the old time songs and Broadway show tunes, a time of harmony for all of us, figuratively and real. Music was the essence of our home. We spent more time making music together than anything else I can remember, and I truly believe it was a good thing and contributed to our joy. If you know me well, you know I am always singing and have a song for just about every occasion. The music in my heart has gotten me through some rough times. I sit at the piano to play a few tunes, but I'm not ready for that yet and I can't see the notes through my tears anyway.

In the kitchen, I remember the lunches and dinners dad and I made together. Just dad and daughter, making spaghetti (our specialty), talking little, (he was the quiet kind- like my Cowboy) but enjoying the simple act of being together.

So many, many more memories replay in my mind - like watching a movie of my life and I miss them all so much. What I wouldn't do for one more word, one more moment, one more touch.

So, I guess I disagree with the adage that you can't go home. You can. It just isn't the same.