Home Again

“The memories—because I was a privileged child in many ways—were not unpleasant. I never heard my parents fight, for instance. They didn’t raise their voices toward one another (and rarely toward anyone else). Since their bedroom was on the first floor, I couldn’t hear much at night, but I imagined once again their quiet chatter and the sound of a radio they played before they fell asleep. In the middle of the night, I’d often hear the growl of my father’s snores (he was a fervent pipe smoker), and I’d tiptoe to the stairwell and call down ‘Dad!!’ After a while, the snoring would subside (how my mother slept, I’ll never know).”—Kathryn E. Livingston

Words & Wonder

By Kathryn E. Livingston

BOGOTA New Jersey—(Hubris)—December 2023—Last summer I went “home” from New Jersey to upstate New York and slept in my old bedroom, a room I haven’t slept in since my mother’s death more than two decades ago, in a house I haven’t lived in since I left for college in 1971. A series of circumstantial blips made it possible: my musician husband was playing with the New York City Ballet in Saratoga Springs, my nearby childhood home in Schenectady (now owned by my brother) wasn’t rented out to college students (this being summer break), and the idea of returning to the old homestead for two nights (even after it had been left in less than pristine shape by the previous semester’s Gen Z-ers) suddenly appealed to me. Plus, it was free of charge.

Granted, Thomas Wolfe, it wasn’t the “same” home as the one I left. But my room was relatively unchanged—though the bed was different and my brother has painted the floors white. Still, instead of feeling haunted by ghosts or depressed by memories, I felt comforted. The breeze that floated through the windows was the same, the birds that began chirping at 5 a.m. familiar, and the glorious chapel bell from the nearby college rang every hour.

In my old room (which I took over as a pre-teen after my elderly great aunts had moved out), I fell asleep at midnight and woke up at 2 a.m. Instead of struggling to get back to sleep I decided I’d rather experience this novel situation. So, I stayed awake and listened—to the cars occasionally whooshing up the avenue below (in a city like Schenectady, traffic in the wee hours is moderate), the bells, and the memories, which were even louder than the sounds, themselves.

The memories—because I was a privileged child in many ways—were not unpleasant. I never heard my parents fight, for instance. They didn’t raise their voices toward one another (and rarely toward anyone else). Since their bedroom was on the first floor, I couldn’t hear much at night, but I imagined once again their quiet chatter and the sound of a radio they played before they fell asleep. In the middle of the night, I’d often hear the growl of my father’s snores (he was a fervent pipe smoker), and I’d tiptoe to the stairwell and call down “Dad!!” After a while, the snoring would subside (how my mother slept, I’ll never know).

Other memories came forth at around 3 a.m. My high school boyfriend called every night at 8 p.m. sharp, on the black table phone stationed by my bed, and we’d talk for an hour or more. I thought back to the day he rang to tell me he was going to Woodstock (I was not allowed—in fact, didn’t even ask, already knowing my dad’s answer). I recalled staying up late to listen to the Top 40 on my transistor radio, chatting with my girlfriends, picking out clothes for school the next day (I remembered my favorite mini skirt and a few other outfits). I recalled the clanking of the old radiator, and I remembered the top shelf in my closet where I hid my diary, my pot-smoking pipe, and contraceptives my senior year. (As mentioned, how my mother ever slept, I’ll never know.) Then my mind went further back and as the chapel bell struck 6 a.m. I remembered coming into this room to visit my great aunts . . . entertaining them with songs I’d learned in grade school, or dusting their knickknacks.

In that room—so spacious that there are four doors—two to the long hallway that leads to the bathroom and another bedroom, one to the walk-in closet, and a fourth that leads to one of three more second floor bedrooms—I learned how to be alone. I had the entire upstairs to myself after my older siblings married. I could smoke cigarettes up there once I turned 18 (or at least, my parents said nothing about it). Friends (but not boys) could hang out. My parents let me have privacy, and I loved it; I learned to love being alone, but not always. I knew—privileged as I was—that all I had to do was walk downstairs and my parents would always be there. I lived with the fear that my father (who had a serious heart condition) would leave us too soon. But thankfully, he waited until I was grown, married, and a mother. (Even that felt too soon, of course.)

The house is still filled with love (even though as a precaution—and with my brother’s permission—I did sage the place after one particularly unpleasant group of college girls moved out). And staying there again made me realize that going back into the past is not always such a bad practice. Our goal is to live in the present, but foraging for a dusty gem or two in times gone by isn’t always undesirable. In fact, looking back at my past I sometimes rediscover incredibly abhorrent things that I did or said; in the revisiting, I’m reminded never to repeat those errors. It occurs to me that maybe the reason I did those very stupid things at that particular time was precisely so I wouldn’t do something even more idiotic at a later date. It’s quite possible that things might be much, much worse for all of us if we hadn’t screwed up early on.

The second night, I slept like a baby, and didn’t even wake up for the chapel bells. There were no bad vibes, no ghostly visitors, not even a bat (which had plagued my mother in her later years). So yes, if the circumstances are right, you can go home again. And you may even get a good night’s sleep.