Better than therapy

Posting was a little sporadic last week, as I was back in the Midwest for a family reunion (in the town where my mom and her 11 siblings grew up, where my grandparents still live, and where I—make a fool of myself—put on a show each Thanksgiving).

I love that town. Moreover, I love my grandparents’ house in that town. Whenever I’m in a situation where I’m taken through a guided visualization (and for some reason in my life, that’s been a lot of times, quite possibly more than the average person) and I reach the part after the deep, calming, relaxing breathing, the part where they say, “Now picture yourself in a place where you feel calm and relaxed,” I always, always, always end up in my grandparents’ house. Always. I’ve tried to end up on a tropical beach, or next to a peaceful mountain lake, but I can’t ever fool myself, and end up in Wisconsin, usually on the screened-in porch, casually lazing on the porch swing.

When I was a kid we’d pack up the car and trek across the middle of America to get to Grandma and Grandpa’s. We’d usually spend a couple weeks there, riding bikes, buying 10 cent candies at the stuck-in-time variety store uptown, squishing pennies on the railroad tracks, wading in the Mississippi river, catching lightning bugs, and just being carefree kids. And while the activities have changed, somewhat, whenever we pull up the road approaching the house everything melts away and I can just be carefree.

My senses are in a heightened state whenever I’m there. I particularly notice the sounds and smells. Like the smell of Grandma’s house (each room so distinct), the smell of the river just a block away (closer if it’s flooded), the smell just before a thunderstorm rolls in, the smell of the yard (combination of the trees, the garden, the grass, and the general “Midwest” smell in the air), and funny things like the smell of Bactine, cedar closets, or Folgers coffee brewing. I have all of those smells committed to memory and if one of them ever pops up elsewhere in my life, I’m immediately transported.

I was struggling to fall asleep last night in their house. The night was very still, but anything but quiet. I crept out to the kitchen to get a glass of water, hoping not to wake anyone and I was overcome with the sounds that are so signature of Grandma and Grandpa’s place: the creak in the kitchen floor; the symphonic rhythm of the crickets, the tree frogs, and bull frogs; the murmur of trucks on the county highway off in the distance. It was the perfect early summer night, not too hot or humid, so the windows were all open letting in the concert along with the fresh air. I found myself mesmerized standing in the sun porch off the kitchen soaking it all in.

That town and that house are definitely my happy place. And while I’m happy in my place, here I lie with the windows open and the sounds of sub-woofers in the trunks of a teenage neighbors’ cars rattling my room and the musty smells of an old house having been closed up for a few days, and all I can visualize is getting back.