I visit that apartment all the time in my daydreams. I always start on the porch in the corner by the couch. I scan each inch of the space, trying to remember everything I can. How many pillows were in the pile in the corner? What were the fabrics on all of them? What was sitting on the table beside the couch? I go to the window and remember the feel of the metal handle that slid the windows open. I smooth my hand over the low windowsill, the rough stucco-like surface familiar on my hand. My feet walk on the cool cement and I remember that I almost always wore slippers in that apartment.
I kind of hated the apartment when we first moved in. I cried some heavy tears the first days there, trying to fit our lives into a home that didn’t feel at all like us. The couches were old and ugly. The bedroom was too dark. The sunlight only went as far as the porch. But then we conceived our baby there and got to know the route the fog travelled when it rolled down the valley in the early mornings. We watched my belly grow in that apartment and watched the Alps rise up through the seasons and change from yellow to brown to white. We brought our new baby home to that apartment and spent all those wild and precious nights awake with her there. And through all of it, my feet became comfortable walking on that tiled floor.
I have never longed for a home I’ve left like I long for this home. I want to clean the crumbs off the counters again or stand brushing my teeth on the warm bathroom floor. It feels unfair, in a way, to my current home, how I ache for the old one. But here I am, dusting my current home, touching all the pieces of my life and longing, longing.
Beautiful! I’m so glad I got to visit you in that special apartment!