My Childhood Home

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The fleeting changes that often accompany seasonal transition are especially exasperated in a child’s mind, most notably when the cool crisp winds of fall signal the summer’s end approaching. The lazy routine I had adopted over several months spent frolicking in the cool blue chlorine soaked waters of my family’s bungalow colony pool gave way to changes far beyond the weather and textbooks. As the surrounding foliage changed in anticipation of colder months, so did my family. My mother’s stomach grew larger as she approached the final days of her pregnancy and in the closing hours of my eight’ summer my mother gently awoke me from the uncomfortable sleep of a long car ride to inform of a wonderful surprise. No longer would we be returning to the four-story walk up I inhabited for the majority of my young life. Instead of the pavement surrounding my former building, the final turn of our seemingly endless journey revealed the sprawling grass expanse of a baseball field directly across from an unfamiliar driveway sloping in front of the red brick walls that eventually came to be know as home. My childhood was a playground for imagination. Joyous nights were spent surrounded by family at my home in Brooklyn, NY. The constantly shaded red bricks of my family’s unattached town house located on West Street in Gravesend, a mere hop away from the beach and a short walk to the commotion of Brooklyn’s various commercial areas. In the winter, all the houses looked alike, rigid and militant, like red-faced old generals with icicles hanging from their moustaches. One townhouse after the other lined the streets in strict parallel formation, block after block, interrupted only by my home, whose fortunate zoning provided for a uniquely situa... ... middle of paper ... ...resence of my parents upstairs, despite the brain scrambling heat of the sauna, I suddenly felt homesick, and realized I yearned to be in my basement. The pitted feeling in my stomach grew stronger as I realized it is not the basement of my childhood that I miss, it is the basement of my fraternity house where Kegs littered the floors like toys and pledges were hazed like the violent was games my youth. I found another cycle came to a close, and I found myself separated from what I had once known. The basement used to be my sanctuary, the place I could dream in. Standing just outside a basement no longer mine while still profusely sweating from the sauna, a crisp late August breeze gently cooled my body. I deeply inhaled the last moments of summer knowing full well that fleeting changes that often accompany seasonal transition were no longer of any concern to me.

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