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I remember

Memories of home are bathed in gold

By Danika MoirPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
2
The back door at my grandparent's house in East York, Canada, where I grew up. This hall was always filled with warmth and love.

When I think of my childhood home, I feel nothing but warmth that saturates my bones. And when I say home, I don’t necessarily mean a physical place. Home lives in my heart, and speaks to me through memories bathed in gold. From before I can remember, home was with my grandparents. Up at the trailer in Buckhorn, Ontario, or in their old home in the East York suburbs, home was with them. Home never felt like the house I grew up in from 5 to 17, or the apartment I had from 17 to 21. These are some of the memories I hold on to, from the house with the creaky floor boards, to the trailer where I spent every summer:

I remember those 5 steps to the porch, and the golden doorknob that you had to fix every few days. Every halloween, the same cardboard figure was hung on the glass door, and papa I would sit on the railing while papa smoked his cigarettes and I drank a Pepsi.

I remember waking up on the old couch with the guard rail pressed against my side. A dirty cream coloured thing with a light pink and blue pattern, that ugly couch was where I spent my summer nights dreaming.

I remember lines of sunlight flickering across my face through the vertical blinds. They were hard plastic, slightly curled on the outsides, and made small clicking noises when they were opened and closed, moved left and right by the thin chain with the metal balls. As they swayed back and forth, my drowsy eyes would take snapshots of my grandparents on the porch, drinking their morning tea.

I remember sleepwalking and falling down the stairs, or off the bed and sleeping on the floor. Finding myself waking up to creaks under my feet, and crawling back up the carpet stairs I would slide down every day. In the mornings I would watch shows I cannot remember in the living room with the crimson walls and wood paneling.

I remember Nana watching TV in the living room in the early hours of the morning when she couldn’t sleep. When I was restless, I would sit in her lap and she would rub my back until drifted off once more.

I remember the journey. Walking over sharp rocks, ducking under the rope that tried to keep us from crossing the golf cart road, and my feet sinking into the damp earth where grass began to mix with water. Looking at the broken dock I was forbidden to go on but that my feet begged me to go to. They never did take me there.

I remember gripping that old white flagpole and spinning around it until I got dizzy and fell to the ground. I’d stare at the sky and try to find shapes in their fluffy forms while my friends and I laughed until we were out of breath.

I remember the rain hitting the tin roof like bombs, curling up next to nana, being frightened of the sound. She would make me feel better, every time.

I remember Bob and Carole giving me an old bike, riding it as much as I could up and down the lane with thousands of rocks crackling under me. The fearlessness I felt when I sped down the road and around the corner Nana told me never to try. The drop of my heart as the bike flew out from under me and the scrapes that stayed for weeks.

I remember spending days at the pond, jumping off the floating dock and launching myself back up to the sky with my legs as my rockets. I’d climb the ladder, slimy with algae, and sit at the edge of the dock with my yellow bucket and the same net my father used as a child. I’d catch a fish and name it as I placed it in my bucket of water and try to swim with one arm holding the bucket above my head so I could show Papa and Nana my new friend.

I remember Papa’s booming laugh and his cigarette smoke polluting the fresh air while Nana brushed my hair on the deck. Many Pepsi floats were consumed on days like that. Papa was, and still is, exclusively a Pepsi man.

I remember Halloween in summer. Golden evenings spent wandering through the tree-filled trailer park with my friends, crowds of children and parents in dollar store costumes. Trying to climb impossibly large trees with mischievous friends.

I remember my first days getting there. Parking the car on the front lawn and unpacking, only to do the reverse months later. Every summer I made the promise to go back.

I remember it being harder to follow up on that promise.

I remember the statues of Snow White and all the dwarfs behind the neighbour’s trailer, how vibrant they used to be; I grew older and watched the colours chip and fade. That last summer I saw them I was 17, and they had almost become grey.

I remember at the time feeling as if I had faded with them.

grandparents
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About the Creator

Danika Moir

I'm a jill of all trades artist from Toronto, Ontario. Soon I'd like to be able to work as a full time artist but, until then my feet stay on the ground with my 9 to 5.

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