home

“It’s gone, 
but I knew it when I had it, 
when the island was my home, 
and every morning the seagulls woke me.”

-Mary Stolz

I've been back home a few times since I left. And I can count the times on both hands; mostly because of lack of money, not because I didn't want to go back. I’m very morose because it's been almost four years since I've been home. Although, it isn't really "home" it is still my motherland. Hardly anyone is still there. And the fact that the house is gone is so horrible to me. We had a lovely plot of land on the edge of town. We had cats and a dog, and rabbits; and we grew wonderful gardens every year, and there were apricots and apple trees. But my mother was never satisfied. She always wanted to be in the country. We were on the edge of town, basically in the country. After searching for a "house in the country" for our most of our childhood, she decided that nothing was good enough and mortgaged the house to move it to the country. The house was built in the early 1900's and is such a beautiful beast. It should not have been moved from its roots in that town. My grandfather built a house in that town. My ancestors are buried there. My grandparents, and aunts and uncles; my great grandmother is there. My lineage is filled with pioneers. They carved out their lives in the wilderness. They moved it, cutting down the two majestic sycamore trees in the front yard. It now sits at a plot in the middle of the country about ten miles away. On a hill. Alone. They lived there, until my sister left, and then my brothers. My mother sold it after they divorced. I would have loved to have kept it in the family.

When I go home to my motherland, I always to go to Rockville. I visit my kinsmen's graves. I go to the spot where I grew up. I go to that empty plot covered in weeds, and overgrown with grass, with all the junk accumulated. And I weep. I weep for everything that was, everything that could have been, and everything that I miss about home. Home to me is my childhood. It’s not something truly tangible. It’s something that cannot be explained. But I sit there on the roof of that old garage, and weep. There are so many things I would do differently, that I can't ever go back and do. And it's horrible.