Here is the thing about home.

It is an ever-changing subject of art. It is not a concrete feeling or place: it is abstract and it continues to morph from person to person.

For me, I return to my childhood home in the same way I left it.

I remember the house on Maxwell Drive like you would remember the answers you put on an especially easy test. There is mainly a sense of confidence and pride, a certain adoration in yourself that comes with those feelings, and in the back there is a vibrant, yet dormant, trickle of doubt and regret. I remember Maxwell Drive, however, like you would remember the void if you were to ever see it; you would not be able to describe it because there was nothing for you to see, but you would remember it vividly simply because it was such a peculiar experience.

This place is paved with memories. I remember the flowers that we planted in the front garden. In my room, the same breed sways in still air on my windowsill.

There is also a cemetery across the highway that curves into Maxwell Drive. I was six when I left Niskayuna, much too young to ever visit a cemetery, but not young enough to not know what the fields and stones meant. In the morning, my mother would drive us to school down the highway. And we would pass the cemetery.

I’ve always wanted to go. And here I am.

…

What do you regret, child… the cemetery is beautiful and I realize that I feel out of place, and I also realize that it’s completely different from what I expect. What do you regret, or who do you regret…

Is it yourself,

(yourself yourself yourself)

Or your blood,

(blood ! blood ! blood !)

Perhaps the disrespect you weep upon us.

I leave. By car. Toyota Corolla with nostalgic scent… envelope lying empty in my hand, to father, to the sky.

And now I am here. On the steps to the MET, alone.