Into the Pensieve

"All of this must seem pretty small to you now, huh."

My mother was driving us both back to her and my father's house after visiting my father in the hospital. He'd just had double bypass surgery a few days earlier (no heart attack - they found a 70% blockage, so this was all preventative care, not reactive - thank goodness), and as is the case with the universe, I had already planned, a month or two prior, to come home that weekend and visit family. The joke of the trip was that my father decided to steal the attention away from his son coming home from California to chilly central Virginia.

But there we were, driving past schools and strip malls and dentists offices and gas stations and neighborhood parks and patches of woods that littered the side of the road. And there I was, watching each of them go past my window, my mind flashing back to distant memories. Some joyful, some painful.

"Not small..." I responded.

I wanted to say something else, to explain what being back in this place was like for me. What I was thinking, the feelings my mind was wandering to. But I couldn't think of anything else to add. It was true, I didn't think of Henrico Virginia as small. Or insignificant, or quaint, or cute, or whatever calling a place "small" entails. But there wasn't a word that I could use to correct "small". And yes, it's true - now that I live in Los Angeles, such a place as Henrico/Short Pump could easily be considered "small", up against a mammoth city like LA. But the feeling I was feeling in that car ride back to my parents house was the exact opposite of small. I felt haunted.

Mind you, while I do in fact believe I have a poltergeist that has followed me around since freshman year of college (intrigued? ask me in person, I've legit got so much proof), that's not the kind of 'haunted' I'm talking about. And I'm also not talking about 'haunted' in the sense of 'doom', or a place filled with malevolence coming back to seek revenge on myself and my psyche (although it could easily be). I say 'haunted' in the way that 'haunted' brings forth the idea of shadows, ghosts, whispers of the past coming back to you and reminding you of this and that. Not bad, not good, just present - and stark. When I would pass a place like anice cream parlor near my house, I wouldn't be sent back to a memory of grabbing a giant ice cream cookie sandwich with my youth group friends. Instead, I would flash back to all those crazy adolescent emotions of mine that were forever attached to those settings. The lake from an adjacent neighborhood brought back a twinge of the fear I felt when I came out for the first time, and passing my high school gym brought back whispers of confusion and butterflies that had rooted themselves to my first kiss with another guy (more info on THAT story in a blog entry to come...). In fact later that night when I went by Vinny's (a local Italian eatery my family and friends often frequented) to pick up some dinner for my mother and brother, I instinctively looked around the restaurant for familiar faces - as if a group of my high school friends would be bunched up together in our old booth in the corner, waiving to me.

I've been home now for 3 days, and it's different this time. Something is changed. Probably me, I suppose. But still - I was 'changed' when I came back for my brother's wedding not even 5 months ago. What is it this time? While being back, I've even been able to 'recreate' those memories. I've sat in my childhood bedroom, the nucleus of so much questioning and curiosity and introspection, played music I listened to nearly 10 years ago, and been able to almost step back in time and feel the feelings I had then. I've found myself able to revisit the places in my mind I had made quiet after so much time. And I don't quite know why, but I think I can liken what I'm experiencing to something you may be familiar with...

Ever read Harry Potter?

No? Get out.

Yes? Good. Ok, remember the Pensieve? One of JK Rowling's most curious inventions within her wizarding world? Well, for those of you who have either forgotten, or are deeply deeply evil and have never cracked open the spine of a Harry Potter novel, allow me to regale you with the Pensieve:

A Pensieve is a wide and shallow dish made of metal or stone, often elaborately decorated or inlaid with precious stones, and carrying powerful and complex enchantments. The perceived dangers of the Pensieve relate to its power over memory or thought. The Pensieve is enchanted to recreate memories so that they become re-liveable, taking every detail stored in the subconscious and recreating it faithfully, so that the owner is able to enter the memories and move around within them. - Pottermore

Albus Dumbledore also elaborates on the usefulness of the Pensieve:

"One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form." - Albus Dumbledore

See where I'm going with this? THAT is what these past few days have felt like. It feels like my 737 from LAX flew me straight into a Pensieve. The memories I have from home feel so distant, and my life now is so radically different from what my life was before, that coming home is in and of itself a "trigger", reigniting these experiences - the good and the bad - for me to inspect and ponder. My hometown "is enchanted to recreate memories so strong that they become re-liveable, taking every detail stored in the subconscious and recreating it". It's not like it's been before, where I would come home and it would feel like I never left. This time around, it really truly feels like I left. This place is 'apart' from me now. Not unwanted or unwelcome, from either side or to either end, but nevertheless: it is a place apart.

And maybe that's a good thing. I've written a few times now on this blog about nostalgia and the past and how my ghosts never seemed to truly leave me. But now, what I'm experiencing - this ability to tap in and out of memories and emotions and mentalities from my past - is a sign that I really truly have been able to leave the ghosts behind. That my past no longer haunts me. In fact, maybe 'haunted' isn't the word to describe how I'm feeling. Maybe I'm so in tune with my own mind, and able to control my ability to withdraw and rediscover at will, without getting sucked into the past, that what I am isn't 'nostalgic', or 'haunted'. Maybe the Pensieve really truly is the perfect allegory, because what I feel is pensive. The word "PENSIEVE" in and of itself can be broken down as "PENSIVE" and "SIEVE" together. Selectively pensive.

Yup - that's it. Nail on the head. Dumbledore talks about how it's easier for him to understand his memories once he's literally removed them from his mind and given them up to the Pensieve. He's able to see the patterns, the warning signs, the links between A and B. And that's certainly what is happening to me now. I can drive past that lake in my neighborhood, and revisit the fear I felt when I came out for the first time. Not relive that fear, not get pulled back into it, but revisit it. Revisit and understand my fear. I can send that memory of myself - that awkward, lost 14 year old Grayson who really had no clue about anything at all - a little love and a little compassion. I can call out to him across time and reassure him: "Yes. Your life is absolutely bonkers right now. Everything hurts, and you don't know why. The future is scary, and it just keeps getting bigger and coming up faster. Nothing makes sense inside your head, and yet the people and world around you are demanding an explanation. But I'm here, and I can take your pain and fear from you now. You, 14 year old Grayson, who even now ten years later are tethered to your fear and your confusion and to these places, can at last find peace. Because I am here. And I can look back at it all with a fondness. I can look back at it all with knowledge and insight and resolution and, most importantly, closure."

It's an interesting thing. Closure. Especially when it comes to your hometown. I have no ill will towards Short Pump at all. I will always love this little slice of suburbia where so much, and yet so little, happened in my life. And it is admittedly intriguing to be able to, for example, lie in my old bedroom, listen to music from my early teens, and transport myself somewhere back in time to those memories and emotions like mental time capsules. But I've finally become what I wanted back then. I'm finally able to do what I wanted to do since that night on that lake, or that night at the gym, or that night at the ice cream parlor.

I can leave my fear behind.