Pittsburgh

 This writing is from November 2017. 

I went back to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving weekend for my 10-year high school reunion. I stayed with Sue and John Todhunter, two family friends from before I was born. Sue and John are like my aunt and uncle. Especially after my Mom and Dad moved away from Pittsburgh in 2007, they always graciously hosted me on my trips back home and I got to know them better as an adult. I can’t thank them enough for their hospitality and support, especially when it came to my career. Sue and I shared a special bond because she did the Fulbright in Tatarstan, which is a Turkic ethnic minority in Russia not unlike the Uyghurs. We always had fun things to talk about regarding academic life. I always felt at home there and they took care of me like their own. 

I also went back to my hometown, Swissvale, a borough right outside Pittsburgh. This was 10 years after my parents had moved out. I went to the house where I grew up, and walked around the perimeter. I rang the doorbell but nobody answered. I walked down the street to Memorial Park and down to the old basketball courts where Dad, Ruth and I used to play and throw the tennis ball for our dog Wyatt and where I learned to ride a bike. Here are my reflections from the visit. 

Going back to Swissvale was such a mix of emotions. I felt sadness for the friends I’d lost touch with, nostalgia for my childhood and my family, and hope for my future.

Driving up Braddock Ave on my way there, a memory popped up of sharing a twin stroller with Hali on our way to First Friends. I was in the back, and she was in the front, and Sharon was pushing us down the sidewalk. I remember feeling safe and connected to Hali. 

I remember visiting Ruth at the Taco Bell when she was working. I remember going to Coral Garden for Chinese food with grandpa and going shopping at Giant Eagle. I remember going running in Frick Park. Walking there on the trails I could still feel the pressure and burn in my chest remembering pushing myself beyond my limits during races and practice. 

As I approached the house that I grew up in--7320 Church St (it seems like I’ll never forget that address for as long as I live)--it looked so much smaller than I remember. The stairs and the porch used to be so big in my memory, but they looked small now.

The sign in front of my own house--my old house--read, “No matter where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor” in Spanish and Arabic. (This was November 2017; Trump had just been elected and these signs were a response to his xenophobia.) I was proud and hopeful of that sentiment, hoping that the people inside lived full and inclusive, not fearful and prejudiced, lives.

I walked to the front porch. There on the porch bricks I saw a series of numbers scrawled in white chalk: 271-1507. I remember writing that. It was our home phone number. I had written it there probably over 20 years ago. I was playing secretary and had written down the phone numbers that I knew on the wall as a game. I remember later people saying it was dangerous to write the number there, how a stalker or kidnapper could use it to rob us or kidnap me. It still hasn’t been washed off. 

The address was there unchanged in black numbers on a white tiled background—7320—a number that I felt would be burned into my memory forever. Seeing it again I felt, “This was me. This was my life at one point, this is where I grew up.” The bright red front door was the same as always. How many times had I knocked on that door to get back inside when I didn’t have my key? I had my first kiss in front of this door; our house had been egged on that screen door. I had my high school graduation party on the other side of that door, welcoming people into my house that I had not seen for a long time, like Hali and Sharon, to celebrate my entrance into adulthood that was really only the beginning in a long journey where I would always be a kid. I knocked on the door and rang the doorbell but nobody answered.

I walked to the backyard. I smiled at the thought of climbing the pine tree outback, its two wooden steps still nailed to the trunk. I remembered fondly gardening with my mom, growing tomatoes, strawberries and apricots in that tiny yard. 

 

The apricot tree that we planted is now so much taller and bigger, it’s amazing! And there were the red doors leading down to the basement that we always played on, using the slope as a slide! How many times I had lifted those doors from above and below in going in and out of the basement for reasons—so important at the time—reasons that I don’t remember now. Jumping up and down on the deck, and storming in and out of the back and front doors soaked in rain water from playing Tag and kickball in thunderstorms. And there was the back window I had climbed through so many times because the door was locked and I forgot my house key. 

A cat peeked out from one of the windows and looked down at me. There was life inside. I peeked in the kitchen window—seeing the same stove, dishwasher and refrigerator and floor from my youth, and there were large glass jars filled with pickled vegetables on the shelves. Someone else was now making their story there.

So much was still the same in ways that triggered my memories, I recalled taking out the garbage on Tuesday nights, cleaning the kitchen floor and loading the dishwasher after dinner.

 

Memories flooded back about Grandpa—him taking us to Wendy’s and Subway, building the deck on the back porch, eating cheerios with Orange Juice.

 

I thought of lots of random memories that made me want to cry because my grandpa is gone now and those days are gone. Living in that house was such a big part of my life that I tried to bury and hide from and forget for so long. There are so many people we have lost touch with and yet meant so much to me, it is sad to think that those are parts of myself that I thought I left behind, I thought I had forgotten, but will always be a part of me. Those experiences—while temporary—will always be a part of me and will always serve as a reminder of the person I am and what has made me the person I am. Those experiences are why I am the why I am today.

As I walked down Church St, I also had vivid memories come back of walking Wyatt around the neighborhood with my CD Walkman.

 

At Memorial Park, I remember climbing the dirt trail in the woods back up to the road and now it’s cement stairs! The tennis court where we used to play with Wyatt was now a parking lot. I remember eating free lunches of bologna and too hard sour apples in the summertime under the pavilion. 

 

I saw a rainbow flag in front of one house on the block, that gave me so much comfort and reflection on how much has changed since I’ve left.