The other day my parents had me deliver some fliers to each house in our neighborhood. It was the kind of thing I could just leave under the doormat without knocking on the door. Most of my childhood friends' families don't live in those houses anymore, so dropping off those fliers was the first time in 20ish years that I'd walked up those front porches to those front doors. I was suddenly inundated with childhood memories of running around the neighborhood with friends, going in and out of houses. Remembering how this house has a super steep driveway, and that one always had moss growing on the rock path, and that one had a driveway made of shiny pebbles that slowly eroded until they replaced it entirely. It was a strange blast from the past.
And then Jeremy and I went for a run and saw, completely by chance, my old piano teacher! She didn't live in that neighborhood 20 years ago when I was her student, which makes it an even unlikelier meeting. I stopped to say hello and she did not remember me at all. I don't blame her - she was only my teacher for two years, twenty years ago, and even then she was not at all young. But she asked me if I still played and it was with great, great satisfaction that I told her I was working as an accompanist until recently. She was happy to hear it.
So often when I come back to the US to visit, I'm reminded of everything that has changed. In this case, it was nice to be reminded of all the things that have stayed the same.
(Which does not include this abomination, which I saw at Target yesterday with my own two eyes. I am all for flavor innovation, but this sounds disgusting.)
