1)
At 23 my Mother packed her belongings, bought furniture, picked out paint colors and décor and moved directly across the street from her parent’s home, into a small apartment above her grandmother’s house. Upon entering the apartment one entered a small kitchen that opened into the living room, the only clear separation between the two was the cutoff of the tile floors to the wooden floor. To the right was a hall way that held a single bath room, a large bedroom and a smaller office room. This was to become my room, when I fell into the picture. But this wasn’t our apartment, it was my mothers. At 23, years before me, it was hers and hers alone, but it was still too close to her family, so she decided to make a little distance.
2)
I only remember small bits of our second home, like the large park across the street, my sesame street styled room, the way all the room connected in one single row and my mother’s brown patchwork blanket with the pink flowers. I remember how dark the living room got at night and how light my mother’s room was in the morning. I remember the disgusting medicine I was forced to take and how I threw it up back onto the living room floor. I remember the people walking their dogs outside and my day care that was somewhere close by. I’m sure a lot of memories happened there, but those I don’t remember.
3)
There was a fire place. An actual fire place. That burned ACTUAL FIRE. It was amazing, nothing we had was actual. We had fake Christmas trees and fake flowers, sort of homes that were in buildings instead of single homed houses that were on TV. But this, this fire place was strait out of a fairy tale. It filled the living room with so much warmth and personality, made shadows move in ways I never saw before and was absolutely mesmerizing. It became my favorite thing to watch, sitting directly in front of it on my inflatable plastic snoopy chair; I would poke and prod at it for hours, admire it and be totally content.
4)
Every single inch of the plastic little tikes jungle gym was covered in slugs. I had never even seen a slug in Brooklyn, let alone in our backyard. But after a full day of non-stop rain about a hundred little slugs manifested from the humid air and stuck itself on our poor play set. Me and my two sisters ran inside and begged my mother to do something. She handed us each a salt shaker and told us to go crazy. And we did. By the time my mother came to check on us a few hours later she was met with a massacre of slugs, piles of incriminating salt samples and three wickedly happy little girls.
5)
8:00 am every Saturday morning Emma woke up the entire house. She would ring the door bell until someone finally dragged themselves down stairs and let her in, leaving her to her own devices and returning to their room. From there she would wait downstairs, setting up all the toys we would play with in different sections of the house until I came down stairs, still in my pajamas and with all of the toys I could carry in my arms. Usually we would play at her house; her entire attic was converted into a child’s wonderland, toys covering every bit of the itchy rug that burned our knees and held up our dolls. But Saturday morning was for my house, where everyone was too hung over to wake up any time before 12, and the entire first floor with its vast and plentiful rooms belonged solely to us.
6)
I don’t think my Mother ever planned to move back to her childhood block, but original plans hardly ever do follow through. In a house right next to her first apartment she rented her 6th, where our neighbors were: Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma Lili, Aunt Danielle, Aunt Heidi, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Carmen, Uncle Jo, Aunt Kim, Aunt Bettie, Cousins Mel, Jennet, Joey, Makayla, Mason and Angela. Every Sunday suddenly became a family dinner. There was literally always someone there, a house to go to and a car to borrow. Family reunions happened every time someone walked out of their house and home spread far beyond each of our door steps. On a block my great grandparents moved to over 60 years ago our family grew and settled, making friends with neighbors that 60 years later would become family. The block was more than just a pit stop, it was home.
7)
So we bought a House there and never left.
