During Thanksgiving break, I brought home a little pumpkin. Dirt clumps stuck to its skin. When I ran my fingers across the pumpkin, I laughed. It was bumpy. I pretended that the pumpkin was an angry teenager and that the dirt clumps were its angry acne. But in reality, the pumpkin was just a pumpkin. I did not know what to do with it. So I left it in my childhood bedroom, the one I abandoned for my tiny dorm in New Haven. As more days passed, the pumpkin came closer to reaching its expiration. Every living thing has an expiration date. I recognized this. I did not wait to see it rot. Instead, I left for school.
After Thanksgiving, I was repulsed. Everyone became homesick. Suddenly, people spoke in comparisons. A friend said: That is almost familiar. Almost. Something is always a certain degree off. This time, something about the food: Back home, my mother uses a special sauce. And of course there is a secret ingredient, she said. Another time, the shouting man on the street. We have one too, she said. But a little more religious. Once, looking outside the window, she pointed out two people kissing under an umbrella. My friend did not say anything at first. Then—I miss home. Not homesick. Home-desperate.
Why miss home? I wondered. We’ve all spent our childhoods clawing our way out of it, haven’t we?
The first night I landed home in Washington for winter recess, I did not sleep in my childhood bedroom. I slept in a friend’s bedroom. The next night, I slept at another friend’s. And after that, someone else’s. If the snow had not fallen and iced the roads, I like to imagine that I would have spent the entire break in any bedroom other than my own. When I finally came home, back to my own bedroom, I saw the pumpkin from months ago, sitting on the windowsill. It was the same window I would spend hours looking out of, waiting for a future to come. I realized how anachronistic the pumpkin looked. It didn’t belong in December. You didn’t throw it away? I asked my mother. She shook her head.
Later, when the snow melted and I was back to sleeping in other bedrooms, I threw away the pumpkin. When nobody was looking, I placed it gently into the trash can. Quietly, so nobody would know I wasted a pumpkin. I left shortly after. I did not want to overstay my welcome at home.
I was the first person in my suite to come back. For one week, I lived alone. I did not sleep in my top bunk during this time. Instead, I slept on the floor of my common room, under the window. In Washington, life is distilled through a gray filter from September to April. During this time, depression diagnoses skyrocket. So I blamed my sadness on the gray skies. Each morning of my lonely week, I would wake to find the common room washed in gray, as if I was back in Washington. It seems that even into my adulthood, I cannot escape my childhood.
Before winter recess, I remember a lecture on the Aeneid: how Aeneas leaves Troy ruined, his home destroyed by the ruthless Greeks; how he wanders searching for a new home, a home destined for him, a home reminiscent of a past, a past he does not even remember, a past that does not want him. I pictured him distinctly in my head: alone on a ship, eyes somewhere over the horizon, wondering, longing. Is this home? Is this home?
During Thanksgiving break, I brought home a little pumpkin. Dirt clumps stuck to its skin. When I ran my fingers across the pumpkin, I laughed. It was bumpy. I pretended that the pumpkin was an angry teenager and that the dirt clumps were its angry acne. But in reality, the pumpkin was just a pumpkin. I did not know what to do with it. So I left it in my childhood bedroom, the one I abandoned for my tiny dorm in New Haven. As more days passed, the pumpkin came closer to reaching its expiration. Every living thing has an expiration date. I recognized this. I did not wait to see it rot. Instead, I left for school.
After Thanksgiving, I was repulsed. Everyone became homesick. Suddenly, people spoke in comparisons. A friend said: That is almost familiar. Almost. Something is always a certain degree off. This time, something about the food: Back home, my mother uses a special sauce. And of course there is a secret ingredient, she said. Another time, the shouting man on the street. We have one too, she said. But a little more religious. Once, looking outside the window, she pointed out two people kissing under an umbrella. My friend did not say anything at first. Then—I miss home. Not homesick. Home-desperate.
Why miss home? I wondered. We’ve all spent our childhoods clawing our way out of it, haven’t we?
The first night I landed home in Washington for winter recess, I did not sleep in my childhood bedroom. I slept in a friend’s bedroom. The next night, I slept at another friend’s. And after that, someone else’s. If the snow had not fallen and iced the roads, I like to imagine that I would have spent the entire break in any bedroom other than my own. When I finally came home, back to my own bedroom, I saw the pumpkin from months ago, sitting on the windowsill. It was the same window I would spend hours looking out of, waiting for a future to come. I realized how anachronistic the pumpkin looked. It didn’t belong in December. You didn’t throw it away? I asked my mother. She shook her head.
Later, when the snow melted and I was back to sleeping in other bedrooms, I threw away the pumpkin. When nobody was looking, I placed it gently into the trash can. Quietly, so nobody would know I wasted a pumpkin. I left shortly after. I did not want to overstay my welcome at home.
I was the first person in my suite to come back. For one week, I lived alone. I did not sleep in my top bunk during this time. Instead, I slept on the floor of my common room, under the window. In Washington, life is distilled through a gray filter from September to April. During this time, depression diagnoses skyrocket. So I blamed my sadness on the gray skies. Each morning of my lonely week, I would wake to find the common room washed in gray, as if I was back in Washington. It seems that even into my adulthood, I cannot escape my childhood.
Before winter recess, I remember a lecture on the Aeneid: how Aeneas leaves Troy ruined, his home destroyed by the ruthless Greeks; how he wanders searching for a new home, a home destined for him, a home reminiscent of a past, a past he does not even remember, a past that does not want him. I pictured him distinctly in my head: alone on a ship, eyes somewhere over the horizon, wondering, longing. Is this home? Is this home?
