I live quite close to where I grew up. How close you ask? Only one zip code away. If the traffic lights were with me I could probably make it from my house now to my house then in five minutes. The whole area feels like home as it's the only place I've ever known. But there are subtle differences in what I consider "home" even within such a narrow area.
For instance, I went shopping with my mother last week. We needed to get some groceries. We went to the grocery store closer to her house which is the one she normally shops at. I looked around and didn't know where things were. The store itself just felt like "other people's store" instead of my store. And yet this is the grocery store I went to for my whole adolescent life.
When I think back to my childhood and remember my mother telling me I could do any gymnastics I wanted to in the grocery store, as long as I didn't put my hands down, I'm thinking about events that happened in that store. When I remember coming to the store to visit my boyfriend, Bill, who was a register clerk there during high school, it was at that store, but it seems far away and elsewhere-ish in my mind.
What does seem like "my store" is the one just a few miles away that's closer to my house. But I can remember a time when I first moved closer to this second store and how foreign it seemed to be shopping there instead of the store I'd shopped in for so many years.
It's the same with your main gas station or your main strip mall or main coffee shop. Whichever one you frequent the most becomes your mental "home" and everything else seems unfamiliar and for other people.
The Big Boy Update: "I see Minnie Maus. It's a Minnie Maus." During lunch the other day I heard him saying this. I didn't know what he meant until I realized I'd served him his food in a new bowl that had Mickey Mouse at the bottom. He had moved the mashed potatoes around and was looking at the image at the bottom. He can say "Mickey" but when it comes to the whole name, he thinks Mickey is "Minnie Maus." He also said "Bear, bear, bear!" yesterday and I realized, again, that he was looking at the bottom of the bowl we had been given by friends recently. He was looking at Winnie the Pooh.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Ack Ack Ack Ack. She has a very strange laugh she does sometimes. It sounds like she's trying to clear her throat by doing a hacking sound. But no, she's laughing. And she's usually laughing at you.
Someone Once Said: Scientific detachment: It’s the ignition system of the world; without it we’re sunk.
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