"It's very weird and hurtful that you have this person who means everything to you and then one day, they're just somebody that I used to know," Matheus said of breakups. "Like that song!"
While that's very true of human relationships – so much so that cultures around the world have created music, art and literature around it for time immemorial, not the least of which involved Gotye and Kimbra – it's also true of places. Sure, in the macro-sense, we recognize how places can be important to us – like when Paris is someone's favorite city or they just love going to Hawaii each year. However, neither Gotye nor Sting nor Shirley Bassey for that matter sing about the intimacy we develop – and sometimes lose – with places.
Staying with unusual pop culture references, in Sex and the City, when Aiden (the one she really should have ended up with) moves in with Carrie, they argue about many things including why Carrie needs two doors to her walk-in closet, which she claims gives her a second exit in case of emergency. Obviously most Manhattan apartments don't have two separate entrances to a walk-in closet, if one even exists. But giving Carrie some credit, she was used to a feature of a place that had become extremely familiar and intimate – her apartment, her personal space.
Somehow, we adapt and often maximize whatever our environments present to us.
My Aunt Marsha tells the story of how she used to make roast chicken. She would buy two chickens, season them and break the end of the drumsticks before putting them in the oven. She did this for years. One day her grandmother was over and watched Aunt Marsha do this.
"Marsha, why are you breaking the legs of the chicken?" Grandma Roth asked.
"Grandma, I learned it from you. That's what you always did!"
Grandma Roth laughed heartily.
"Marshie, I did that because my oven was too small! That's how I made it fit!"
So it seems we even cook based on the environments hold dear.
In the mundane moments of our lives we walk hallways, put dishes in drawers and cabinets, take dogs for walks and kids to school. We spend time in offices, supermarkets, waiting rooms, cars and bathrooms. We live in environments we often wouldn't take the time to describe in any detail – and perhaps couldn't fully if called upon. Yet slowly, sneakily they creep up on us and become part of the fabric of our lives.
We know how to giggle the handle, push up when we turn the key, push firmly on the brake, avoid the part of the path that floods after the rain.
One of the most distinct and unique smells in my memory is the my grandparents' front hall closet. I have never smelled another space like it and it was the only part of the house with that particular smell. I don't have any good adjective for it other than to say it was a benign smell – something that smelled of "house" in a sense. Only not. For that reason, I enjoyed going in that closet, but didn't overindulge which is odd for a house at which I logged in countless hours of hide and seek. All the same, I loved that closet and smell more than any other part of the house.
In fact, my grandparents' house – like all houses we live in, but especially when we're young – was a space as intimately familiar as the back of my hand. Children have the curiosity, time and attention to really explore the places in which they find themselves from homes to classrooms to playgrounds. Naturally, being one of my favorite places on Earth, I knew every inch, smell and texture of that house from how to work the intercom system to the little ceramic jars on the high windows at the top of the ranch-style ceilings in the family room. The only thing I didn't realize until my twenties was just how comfortable the sofa was in the formal living room – we weren't allowed on it, nor to touch the corresponding coffee table.
In Westlake, I live in the same neighborhood in which I grew up. The same was true when I was married and living two blocks from my current house. Somewhere between late May and early June the houses give off the smell of summer. I don't know what it is exactly or what causes it. Maybe to someone else more familiar with construction or architecture, it would smell like wood frame or cement slab foundation or insect nests or something – but to me it's just the smell the houses of the neighborhood give off as the warmer, longer days of summer arrive. I find it both nostalgic and relaxing. It's the smell of childhood and the harbinger of carefree days to come.
Homes are easy to understand as intimate places because they are ours and form the backdrop of our private lives.
Other kids of spaces including very public ones can become surprisingly familiar and intimate. Over the past two days, I've watched Matheus breathe in Patmos – a place he spent nine weeks in 2019 and with which he became very familiar. While we take him to so many of the obvious places we all go – he looks for little things that mean something to him – which in many cases are different than what matter to me or perhaps the kids. This particular path, that store, the curve of the marina, the color of the water at Agriolivadi. They correlate to his lived experience that was happening concurrently with the rest of us that summer, but was not necessarily the same. Matheus was at his juncture in life, thinking and feeling in many different ways from the rest of us and so I see him looking both at Patmos but also for his 24 year-old self in the contours and colors of the island.
Even kids aren't immune. For Sennen, part of the joy of yesterday's Boat Day was revisiting his memories of 2019 – perhaps being sure it was all real. The gap between six and eleven years-old is huge. Sennen has a particularly amazing memory. Yet there was something validating and soothing about going back and finding the memories were accurate – the places are what the remembered and the experiences did indeed happen. Sometimes we just need to check-in on our reality.
We return to the familiar for all kinds of reasons. Some places made us feel safe and soothe us when we return. Others were the site of our worst moments and help us mark positive change, or deal with unresolved trauma. Still others are where we celebrated – places where times were good – and help us access the joy of which we could use a dose. And then all-too-often there are places that tap into our grief – the people who have passed away or maybe the ones who sadly became "somebody that I used to know".
As we pass through life, we unwittingly and unknowingly hide little bits of ourselves and our memories in cracks and crevices of our environments. That's why so many couples have a restaurant or place they return to for anniversaries – the place they got engaged or married or had their first date or said "I love you." These places are grounding – almost like a Northstar – that can help them remember who they were when they started the journey in order to find their foundations when life has taken them very far down the path.
I suppose where we spend our time is a little like getting a tattoo – be careful where you spend it because like it or not, those places become etched into your psyche. They become part of who you are.
My answer is may be simple or spoiled or naive – I'm not sure which, or maybe something else altogether: be where you want to be as much as you can. Life has so many constraints, pains and complications. We don't always get what we want and despite what Mick Jagger says, even then we try and still don't often get what we need. However, in other ways, we have more control than we sometimes believe. There are a lot of places to live and a lot of ways of living. Many of them are fantastic and not so terribly difficult to access.
If on your life's journey you find yourself somewhere that resonates, feels happier, nurtures you, represents a lifestyle you really wish you could have – unless it's Bel Air or Monaco – there's a good chance you could live there. And maybe you should. Because life is too short to live with our cups half full – or less full than they could be. A small apartment in paradise is better than a five bedroom mansion in hell. Or more realistically, life is full of possibilities – why dismiss them out-of-hand? Write your story in a place you really want it set. Leave pieces of yourself in places you want to revisit – that will evoke the feelings and thoughts you want waiting for you when you back around.
