This is my home. A strange conceit-- I only lived here for five years, and in Philadelphia for barely 10 years. But this is where I "grew up." The house on Ellis Road still defines who I am. I know this house-- there were nine trees over 100 feet tall. We had to shovel the long driveway by hand. There was no sidewalk on our side of the street. The house behind us and catty-corner was home to a German shepherd dog who once attacked me when I was sitting in an old laundry basket and couldn't get up. We weren't allowed to cut through the yard of our neighbor Grace. (She was the original "hey, you kids, get off my lawn" curmudgeon. She lived there with her same-age, same-sex companion, whom I now realize was probably her partner. I wish I had been nicer to her, as that required some courage in the mid 60s.) Grace weeded her lawn with a tweezer. My mother loved the cardinal lamppost. I know so many tiny things about this house, inside and out, and about our neighbors the Blaufelds, and the Heimbeckers across the street and the Robertses two houses over.

But I remember it all only as I interacted with it. I didn't know that Grace was gay. I knew that the farther off neighbor Theodosia was scandalous, but I still don't really understand why. I knew that Mr. Heimbecker was to be avoided, but didn't realize until I was an adult that it was because he was drunk.

Perhaps this is home because this is where my family was happy and normal. In Urbana we were an unhappy family, unique and isolated, as unhappy families supposedly are.