happiness hangover

I'm still quite blissful.

I slept till noon this morning (afternoon?), donned a breezy skirt because all my pants are in the wash, popped into a cab and hurried to church. The air was cool just after the rain, sort of damp but not quite humid enough to warrant loud complaint. I sat in the chapel and sang, led by a very low-key worship team of 2 (boyfriend-girlfriend duo playing the guitar and singing quite beautifully). The numbers in my class swelled, we had 10 girls today and 1 boy. The one boy was a novelty, since the boys in my level are roundly dismissed as "nonexistent" by the females, because of their, well, pitiful attendance. He didn't say much, and I sat speaking briefly but mostly listening and eating two boxes of Orange Tic-Tacs, which are my candy addiction.

After church and a quick lunch back home, I went back to my old house for my piano lesson (because my neighbour is my teacher), clumsily padded out some Beethoven and Bach for an hour. I waited for my father to come and get me, lazily reclining in my teacher's old sofa, listening to David Gray on my iPod (which was cradled comfortably in my bright green iPod sock). After my dad came, we went into the house to get some more of our things we left stranded there. My teacher told me some wild cats have been living in the cavity that is my old home, and I walked through its emptiness, breathing in the dust of a house that had not been lived in for half a year, neglected and forgotten in a part of the island I see only once a week now. Though my present home is comfortable beyond belief, nostalgia always comes to me in waves when I return to the only other house I've ever known. Suddenly, my mind draws comparisons. Everything is so much smaller, everything is so potent and filled with all the memories of my childhood I myself no longer remember. A home, beyond all the visual and written documentation, is a physical memory. My body remembers the way the house smelt, and the way the wall in my bedroom, slightly stuccoed, felt under my fingers. Cold and delightful to touch, it always used to calm me as I sank into my old bed, under my inexplicably divine linens. Sometimes I still miss the small view outside my bedroom window, which in my new house, has been replaced by my neighbour's fine architectural delight of a house, which while still pleasant, doesn't quite have the verdant charm of the trees and grass that were once visible just beyond my old window grilles.

Its the sort of loss that comes with growing up, and moving on, I suppose, and it doesn't quite sting. It simply swells inside me and reminds me of what I have left behind, and makes me think about all the homes I might have in the future. When I consider this, I am always brought back to my favourite part of The Hours, when Clarissa recalls her favourite memory, understanding that "nothing will equal the memory of having been young together", knowing implicitly the glory of youth and its promise of a future pregnant with possibility. I think about what lies ahead of me, university, friends, everything else, and I think about what will always remain constant, the people and the things I love, and breathe a sigh of gratitude and joy. After 18 long years of worry, it seems I have finally been able to find some peace.