The house that I grew up in is a spooky old Victorian on the top of a little hill. And it's dark brown trim on the outside, so It looks a little mysterious. It's a little bit weather beaten. My parents renovated it when they bought it and they kind of made it an open floor plan on the second floor where we lived. So there's not a lot of walls. It's really sunny. There's big windows, You can see from, if you're standing in the front room, you can see all the way to the back windows and the kitchen. And my earliest memories are of running up and down the long hallway on my hands and my feet like a dog. [Laughs] That was my favorite thing to practice. [Laughs] So I would do it all the time.

Let's see. It's the only house I ever had as a child. We've never moved. So I lived there from May 11th, 1990, to end of 2008. And now I, you know, go back there and visit whenever I can, but...just a lot of really good sense memories there. So I think my favorite thing about the house is the way it smells. It smells different in every season and it always smells like old wood and a little bit like dust, but the best is when it's the summertime and it smells like warm wood floors and the sunlight is touching the floor through the open window. And even though they're clean, they still kind of smell like hot dust. And it's just this like, enveloping smell that hits you when you go through the door, especially on a hot day. There's a lot of beveled edges of glass in the house. 'Cause it's old, kind of old leaded glass that throws these crystal rainbows on the floor that I used to love when I was a kid. They're beautiful and they kind of move across the floor throughout the day. My favorite time of year in the house is early summer. On the second story in early June, when the windows are open, the sun is warm outside, but the shade and the breeze inside are cool. And the house is full of fresh peonies from the yard and the windows are open and the breeze blows the scent from east to west through the house and the curtains kind of come in and out. It's the best.

When I was a kid, I used to just kind of sit on the ground a lot more, which I sort of miss as an adult. I think I'm going to try and get back into it. I've always done this thing where...and I really enjoyed it as a kid...where I would kind of try and see every vantage point that I could from all different parts of a room and all different parts of the house. So I would sit in all the corners, sit on top of all the furniture in different positions. Like what does it feel like to lay across the back of the couch? Or what does it look like to look out from under the armoire or the top of the armoire, or sit on the floor in the closet or sit on the top shelf in the closet. How does it feel? What does it feel like to be there and just be quiet and be a part of the house? So I'm going to try and get back into that. I feel like every time I move into a new apartment I try and just give sitting in a different spot, a little bit of a go. So I'll maybe just sit on the floor next to the kitchen counter, just to see what the ceiling looks like from that angle. Or if I can see the door from there or if I can...how it feels to just sit in a different place.

It's difficult to come and go from this place because it's, it's such an entry point into the past. There's so many memories and feelings associated with it. And it's such a reminder of who I used to be. That it's difficult to step back into that without feeling the need to act like I used to or think like I used to, I very much feel the pull between the two sides of myself, who I used to be and who I am now. So it can be human, be a lot to, to go back to someplace that is the only place you've ever grown up and have it be completely unchanged, but it's always interesting and it's always home and it always feels enveloping. So it's also lovely.