This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About

I had come back to my hometown (which I always refer to as “home home”) in July expecting to stay for a couple weeks, but ended up not leaving for another three months. The power in my Brooklyn apartment kept going out and my anxiety was hitting its peak, so seizing the opportunity to change my environment, mostly for the sake of having Internet access to do my job, was the move. But for months before that, when dozens of people I knew were heading home to their families, I was firm in my decision to not go back to Sicklerville.

Part of this is because three people in my family passed away within the first four months of quarantine. One from COVID, one from cancer, and one in his sleep from a number of health complications. And I guess when you get call after call after call, the last place you want to go is where the calls are coming from. I am a master of being hyper-productive to the point of burning out, but dragging my body along to keep going, all in an effort to keep my mind distracted. My mom would call and I started to end the conversations more quickly with, “I have to go back to work,” or “I have a lot to do,” or “There’s something I have to finish up.” Maybe I can’t be delivered bad news if my palms aren’t open to receive it. I still think about whether these months’ worth of avoidance was an act of selfishness or self-preservation.

I’ve also just spent a lot of my adult life avoiding coming back to the house I grew up in, and when I do I keep it brief, a weekend for my mom’s birthday, a week tops for a holiday. I won’t go into the reasons for that but I will say that being home for this long for the first time in years was more of an exercise in seeing than I had anticipated. I was reminded that when you’re around to look long enough, your eyes adjust. You see more of the details as they are, notice the subtleties of an aging monument. For me, where I’m from is where I started, and the place where I started changed while I was away, too. And yes, there are still many things that stayed the same, some more of a detriment than any benefit. And on the days that I’m lucky, I realize that not every bad memory of a place has to repeat itself just because I’m there. On the days that I do the work, I see more of the details as they are. Like the lines near my mamita’s eyes when she talks about how she prayed the rosary every night before my cousin passed. Or the way my brother wipes down every grocery because no matter what the CDC says about how the virus spreads, he’ll do what he can to keep our parents safe and healthy. Or what it looks like to have longer conversations again with my family, my palms outstretched in the act of it, yet not receiving bad news in return. I won’t always receive bad news in return.

The longer I stayed, the more my eyes adjusted, and that’s why I spent more time at home home than I had planned. And I’m glad I did. I don’t know how many opportunities I have left to do so. So I made as many photos as I could throughout the three months, mostly of what’s changed, but may not be easy to notice. I don’t know if my view of this place will shift, or how much more of my hometown will transform before I realize it. So I wanted to document what I could, taking notice of all the subtleties of this aging monument while my eyes were adjusted.

The movie theater in town that was shut down in March due to COVID. There were still posters up for movies that had been released last winter.

View from my childhood bedroom window.

Growing up, my dad used to take us out canoeing with this green Camper canoe a handful of times every summer. We’d tie it up to the top of his Pathfinder and he’d drive us to a different lake or river in South Jersey every time.

Taken on September 23, 2020. My 10,000th day alive.

I called Emily up in the late afternoon and brought coffee to her and her sister on this day, then I walked with Em around her neighborhood. These are small things that never happen anymore now that we’ve grown older and moved away from home, but it’s nice that timing and location end up aligning sometimes.

Sitting in the shade in our township’s park after walking there from Emily’s house in the blistering heat.

Portrait of my father from the day we went horseback riding to celebrate his 64th birthday in September.

My parents purchased a plot of land in the Poconos in the ‘80s in an effort to build credit since they’d each just immigrated from the Philippines. This summer they decided they’ll build a cabin there to pass down to me and my brother.

If you drive 15 minutes south from my house, you start to hit the much more rural part of southern New Jersey. Drive a little farther and at a cross section in Buena, you hit this shrine of Padre Pio, a Catholic saint people pray to for healing and miracles. My dad first saw this shrine on the local news in the ‘90s. He started visiting after his uncle got sick and the doctors gave him less than two years. My father came to this shrine regularly to pray for him and my uncle lived for another ten. My parents started visiting again after my mom was diagnosed with cancer two years ago.

Our neighbor, Dee, comes over to cut my dad’s hair. In exchange for it, he gives her and her family a few dozen fresh eggs from the chickens he raises in our backyard.

At Creanie’s, if you know, you know.

Went for walks in my neighborhood almost everyday I was home. I’d start right before sunset and come back long after it. One day my dad asked if I could start coming home earlier because my mom worries when I’m out after dark.

An image of Jesus my mother hung on our front door at the beginning of the pandemic in the U.S. The only other households that I know do this are those of Filipino families.