The Bewildered Housewife

Some of my best memories come from my childhood home back East.  Knowing exactly where on this planet my pet parakeet is buried in a Maxwell House can provides me comfort in the wee hours when I have trouble sleeping.  I remember every hornet’s nest, every four leaf clover, every pile of leaves and could walk every inch of that house and acreage backwards, with my eyes closed.  There was a calm security I took for granted, which came from knowing that this was our place in the universe (even as it was inevitably shrinking).

I know a great many people who never had this experience.  Take my husband, for instance.  His childhood addresses read like a progress report on upward mobility.  He grew up on a smattering of Los Angeles properties that his parents acquired, leveled and rebuilt to be newer, bigger, better.  Several times he was wrested from the bedroom he’d come to know, and carted across The Valley to settle into the next dream home before trading up again in a few years.  It almost has the element of military brat, only with a maid and without the military.

If I was my husband back then, I would have sewn my addresses into my pants, because the thought of going “home” to so many different places is confusing.  I’m betting this is the reason why he has such a highly developed sense of direction.  Not me.  I still find myself driving toward my old apartment occasionally.  Just imagine if I were a kid without my current level of crystal-clear acuity!  I’m sure that I’d have been weary from an especially trying day in second grade, walked into somebody else’s kitchen and been halfway through a sandwich before I thought to ask anyone what the hell they’ve done with the fishbowl.  And the wallpaper.  And my mother.

I am normally not this overly sentimental, but I simply cannot help being enamored by the past lately.  Perhaps it has to do with having a little one on the way and the accompanying urge to provide a stable, cozy environment.  Perhaps it is the fact that my family is so far away, and the “family” I married into is too committed to tomfoolery to provide an adequate base of security or affection.  Or perhaps it has to do with the realization that I love my husband more each day and am dreamily envisioning the perfection of our unfolding life.  I’d like to take all those tasty bits of the past, touch up their corners and give them to what’s to come.

See, I can be nice.