The Insane and Bodacious Project World of Kit Fox

Trying to find Google street views of my childhood home is leaving me with an ache inside I don’t understand.  Maybe it’s because I can’t find it on the map, or maybe it’s because the area looks like it’s changed so much.  Maybe it’s because you can look at streets and stop signs and awnings and porches and it suddenly turns into a wave of episodes of Sesame Street, baby carrots in the kitchen, the plastic snow globe in the basement, the shaggy carpet on the stairs, Dad’s ugly flannel shirts, the smell of the wooden toy box grandpa made. 

And everyone says that same old line over and over, “You can’t go home again.”  And as much as I loathe hearing people say it, it’s a fact I can’t get rid of.  That house has someone else’s rustbucket parked on the damn lawn.  Someone chopped down the lilac bushes.  It’s not just the place but the moment in time, the simplicity and the freedom, the complete blissful uncomplicated ocean of the child mind.  I can take the best parts of my childhood with me and keep them forever, which I fully intend to do, and I can hold on to my innocence and creativity and cheer. 

But I can’t get back the lilac bushes.  I can’t have the snow globe back.  I can’t swim in that plastic kiddie pool with my sister.  I can’t fit inside grandpa’s toy box.  I can’t sack out after a summer day of swimming in Lake Erie and feel that heavy air of the oncoming thunderstorm roll over the house, turning everything this ominous orange color that I loved.  I miss the old houses.  I miss not even realizing how carefree I was.