to my home.

home. it's a word that i have been saying over and over in my head. what is it. where is it. home. for the last 25 years, home has been the same place. there's never been a question as to what or where it was. it was in a small town, set off from a residential road with a big backyard and a few acres of woods. it was a 4 bedroom colonial with a kitchen that opened up into a family room. it was a house in which each corner was decorated with purpose, with sense, with love, with an artistic and sentimental eye. home is where we lived. first, my mom, my dad, my toddler brother and a baby me. then, it was the four of us, middle aged and teenagers and a dog too. then it was just my mom, my dad and me in high school and then, it was just the two of them and again, a sweet dog. but still, always, it was home. it never stopped being the place where we cooked and ate thanksgiving dinner all together or where my brother knew to return to with the woman who would be his wife. it was where our dog knew to turn into the driveway, tired after a long walk. home was where we came to be warm after my brother and I went sledding down the best hills we could find in the neighborhood. It was where my mom made hot chocolate and threw our snowpants in the dryer. home was where I played with my barbies and acted out their lives while my brother waded through the woods, in search of adventures. it was where my dad set up a lawn chair on the deck and read his book until always, he fell asleep and napped until one of us would wake him with a question. it was where the acceptance letters came from college, where the scores arrived from the SATS, it was where we lit chanukah candles and where my grandparents came to get out of the bronx. it was where we ate roast chicken and elaborately decorated birthday cakes. it was where we had sleepover parties and later, where we snuck beer in the garage. it was where i locked my bedroom door and cursed middle school and where I first learned to listen to music. it was where I got angry and where i worked it out until i felt whole again. It was where everything changed and where it all stayed the same. it was where the call came to say my grandfather had died and where my brother called to say he had just proposed. it was the place of my first memory and so many after that first moment of recognition at age 3, that i remember spilling a glass of milk from a blue cup. it was where i first watched pretty woman and where my mom told me that she had "accidentally" taped over it. it was where we watched MTV with the babysitter when she taught us to dance. it was where we raised two puppies that chewed through anything valuable and where they became our beloved best friends. it was the place that i first wrote in a journal and learned to find pure joy and deep sadness in words, it was where i learned to express myself. home was food. it was chinese take out and homemade garlic pizza, it was chicken biriyani and indian naan, it was chocolate cake and lemon meringue pies, it was toll house cookies and turkey meat sauce. it was pineapple on the barbecue and it was love any way you could swallow it. it was nights in front of the tv, laughing and it was nights with friends over, drinking wine and again, eating. It was taking pictures but never filling photo albums while always meaning to. it was books and magazines and newspapers to read and articles cut out, meant to inspire me. home was lots of green grass and a garden where we grew vegetables until a woodchuck came and ate them all. it was where we ate dinner on the deck when the weather was warm but not too humid and where my dad made fires that warmed the room. it was where i hosted a co-ed sleepover and where my parents grounded me until the seasons changed twice over and then years later, where they parents read the final version of my thesis, over and over. it was the place i called from rome when nothing felt like home and was never going to and where i called to scream that i was getting married. it was where my best friend came to drink coffee and eat organic cookies and where we laughed so many times and where we cried, sitting on the driveway on the night before we left for college. it was where i brought M. to, to show him where my home was and it was where i saw my parents fall in love with a new son. it was where we said goodbye to our first golden retriever, as she fought each breath on the front step, waiting for my dad to return home form a business trip so she could be at peace. it was where we watched a new puppy terrorize and take over our lives, as we learned to heal and love another dog. home was where we sat at the table and had a family meeting when my dad lost his job and where we celebrated his new one and years later, read the accomplished manuscript he had written. it was where my mom had her home office for her graphic design business that she gave up and the place where she filled the living room with beautiful faces she had painted and given life. it was where my brother punched his closet door when one of his friends set off a toy rocket that landed in our dining room and where he made his first incision in a maple syrup tree. home was failure and it was success. it was happiness and pain and hurt and feeling. it was ups and downs and growing up, for all of us. for twenty five years. for twenty five years home was the same place.