Going home is a difficult thing for me, as I imagine it is a difficult thing for many of us. I find myself at odds with my own family. My father, from whom I am many years estranged, was appallingly bigoted. My sister seems to have adopted some degree of this into her own personality, as well as our mother’s more abusive traits. I've spent the past week reliving far too memories vicariously through my nephew.
My grandmother is cruising from senile and into the happy land of dementia, where grandchildren steal socks and plot to keep her children apart from their hot dogs. An aunt with whom I have nothing in common, and who shrieked at me for years, has turned out to be remarkably pleasant. The catch here is that she’s remarkably pleasant to everyone, and will agree with whatever outlandish thing that is said in order to keep from entering into quarrels. Apparently the lithium has made her a slave to avoiding conflict; a decided contrast to regularly seeking it out.
The houses here are not so dilapidated as they once were. This is a good thing, but jarring when I go to find my old friends with their tag-marked stucco and boarded windows. In their places are vibrantly colored vinyl facades with orderly, layered fenestration and well-manicured lawns. Dirt paths that once spilled onto pock-marked asphalt have been replaced by crisp-edged sidewalks, and forests of half-dead shrubs by orderly wrought-iron fences. Sure, these are wedged in between the familiar lawns of astroturf and tiny, run-down boxes holding too many people, but there is a steady invasion of the Unfamiliar.
