I’ve always thought maybe God messed up my internal time clock when he was making me because I am pretty much bordering on nocturnal at this point, and have been for years. I function better at night, and it is not particularly fair to my dear roommate who goes to bed at normal times while I’m still at my desk with the lamp on, even if she never complains about it.
So today when, as per usual, I couldn’t sleep and still had homework to do, I took my laptop to the dorm laundry room down the hall. I was finishing up my laundry in preparation for coming home anyways, so I figured why not? At least this way, I won’t forget my clothes again.
It was about three in the morning. My laundry took up both dryers, and a small collection of jeans and bras that I didn’t want to dry were splayed out on the tops of any available surface. The room was a little too warm and it smelled like the detergent my mom always uses. I sat under the fluorescent light on top of the lightly buzzing washing machine and soaked in the sound of the dryer humming and the metallic click of buttons and change hitting the sides of the machine as it whirred on and I felt something very strange – something I haven’t felt in months. I felt this lovely sense of being home.
See, I’m not known for smooth transitions. They are not and likely never will be my strong suit. I lived in the same house until I was fifteen and I still miss it, which I realize is the "firstiest" of first world problems, but it’s the truth. I don’t mean that I miss it in the slightly sad, sentimental way. I mean in the I-would-go-live-there-again-no-questions-asked way. Usually, when I think about being home, I’m thinking about being there. I’m thinking about being in the house where everything feels and sounds and smells familiar. As I write this, I’m getting ready to go home to Texas, but not to that home. That home is someone else’s home now and that still stings, even though I helped make the decision to move. As I stuff this weekend’s clothes into my backpack and get the friend downstairs to drive me to the airport, I’m still thinking about coming home to my dad’s beat up blue Honda on the curb and my mom’s flowers in the front yard.
I’m thinking about my mom in her summer nightgown, my dad in his rugby shirt. I can picture what the stairs look like, and the stain on the seventh step. The smell of the incense my mom would burn when company came still lingers on my skin. The light glow of the porch light warms the kitchen. I’m thinking about the way everything sounds: the clicking of the puppy’s nails on the kitchen linoleum, the low hum of the weather channel in the living room. The whistling of the late summer air through the screen door, the vent above the stove.
I’m thinking about the hum of the dryer in the next room.
It will never stop fascinating me that something very small and very insignificant can bring back a feeling of comfort. It will never cease to amaze me that, of all the pictures of family and friends plastered on my dorm room walls, of all the late-night phone calls and skype sessions, and even of all the weekend visits, the grimy old laundry room qualms the swelling feeling of homesickness most.
I’ll leave it at this. Home finds us in strange places sometimes. Maybe we should let it.
