Locational Significance

Essays

Sep 17

I’ve wandered a lot in my life. My parents got divorced when I was two. I got divorced when my kids were four and two. There have been a lot of houses. There has always been one home. Or, in the case of divorced people, two homes. I don’t know that I agree that home is where the heart is because our hearts are constantly ripped and sewn back together, and the location faintly matters when the heart wants what it shouldn’t. So, I’ve moved around. Yet, here I am.

I was born in New York City, but I don’t remember living there in a small apartment with my mom, dad, and our cat, Tiny. Photos tell stories of time past remembrance. I didn’t forget, but I can’t remember. My first memory is in Brooklyn Heights on Montague Street with my mom. She had a carpeted loft bed that had storage underneath. They had pot parties; my mom was a hippie. I got hot tea spilled on my chest there. I can still see the galley kitchen. Photos of birthday parties there remind me of my misplaced youth. Yes, that was Jennifer Connelly.

We moved to Hicks Street at some point, into a bigger apartment. I started with bunk beds next to my mom’s room and graduated to a room in the back corner, past the kitchen, with a half bathroom next to it where I rarely brushed my teeth after sneaking more cookies out of the cookie jar. When I fell asleep with a Chipwich, I tried to get my hair unstuck in my half bathroom. To no avail. The phone was in the kitchen, closest to me, and I remember the day that Annie Plummer called me.

North Hollywood was sprung upon me toward the end of seventh grade because my mom and stepdad were getting married. I bet my dad cried for days about it, but I never knew. He somehow supported everything my mom wanted and what was best for me. I saw him a lot for someone who was across the country. We moved into the red barn, and my window aired itself onto the vestibule near the front door. That window is where I thought Richard Ramirez was going to break in and kill me. I once snuck a girl into my room in the middle of the night in tenth grade. My mom and stepdad opened the door and were totally nice about it, but she had to leave. We were just talking.

Those were my homes with my mom, but I also had homes with my dad, stepmom, stepbrothers, and half-sister. These roamed in between Bedford, Mount Kisco, and Chappaqua. These were all fun houses. At one, we got ducks and incubated them in the house, and watched them run around and take tiny little shits on my sister’s bed. At another, we had goats. My sister named hers Billy because she was young. I named mine Dickhead because I was not. At the house on top of the hill, we had a rock-laden pool that I swam in no more than twice. It was not my home away from home, but I felt like an ornament there because I shared rooms with whoever wasn’t there that weekend.

I ended up in Hightstown, New Jersey, at sixteen, looking like a version of Anthony Michael Hall at boarding school wearing a blue button-down shirt and an argyle sweater in all seriousness. I didn’t feel abandoned. Because I called Camp Taconic home for six summers, two months each time, I had no reservations about living on my own. I took it as empowerment and succeeded there, despite myself. I grew an obsession with socks and J.Crew. My dad bought me a stereo with speakers the size of a heavy bag. He knew how to make me make a first impression.

I spent summers in The Hamptons until way later than this. We were everywhere from Amagansett with my mom to Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor with my dad. I learned to drive Noyac Road blindfolded with no street lights and the reckless abandon of an introverted kid who felt outside of himself out there, in a good way. The giant iced teas, laced with sugar, were my personal hydration of choice ad infinitum. Sand between my toes, Boone’s Farm pre-game, skinny dipping in the bay, employees’ nights, and mailbox baseball.

All the places I laid my head were flashes of warmth in the morning sun. The significance of my location has always been about who was there with me.