I stood at the top of the stairway, grasping for a door that wasn’t there. It was pitch black; as the last one to turn in, I had turned out all the lights before heading to bed. Bedrooms, of course, are normally upstairs, and, usually, when I visit home, I stay in one of the upstairs bedrooms. In fact, my older brother occupied this bedroom in my parents’ house the fall I went off to college, and I had not made the night-time journey down to the basement bedroom in over six years.
In the light, everything looks different than it did then, of course. The kitchen has been redone, the carpet on the stairway replaced, the bedroom repainted and rearranged. But in the darkness, I know this place; my hands know this place. Even after six years, I know exactly where to grab and where to step. I moved methodically through the kitchen; hand on the counter, then on the fridge, then on the door frame. I grab the door frame with one hand while the other reaches for the door. Once I find the door, I know from experience, I can get down the stairs easily, even in the pitch darkness. Except… where is it?
The door was taken down, of course, four years ago. When it first strikes me, the moment, I think how odd it is that the place has changed in the way it has. But if I had been here, then a new table here, a door there, would not be so much. It is me that has changed, and if I’m grasping for a door that is four years gone, then perhaps whatever else it is that I’m grasping for, coming home like this, is years gone as well.
