A Trip Home and Forward

Some profound thoughts and some complaints about poison ivy.

I recently went to Huntsville, Alabama for a fan convention last month. Partly it seemed like a great con (it was) but also because I’m from there and haven’t been back in twenty years. I went into town a day early and had a notion to go see a few places I remembered as a kid, so I rented a car for half a day. The car rental place only had a huge truck available, and I’ve never driven one before, but it seemed on-point for a Southern memory excursion. (I’ll come back to the car rental later).

First, I went to my childhood home where I lived pretty much from zero to eight.

I always ask people at conventions if my head is the same size they’d pictured before they met me in person. Eighty percent say it’s smaller than they imagined, which seems to make sense, but is also slightly insulting.

But the same thing happened when I pulled up and took in my childhood house. I never imagined it a palace, but it was certainly more modest than I remembered. More importantly, the most vivid touchstones about the house weren’t there anymore. The huge tree that dropped seeds in the front yard, the elephant iris that bloomed around the mailbox, the willow tree I swing on in the backyard, or the blackberry thicket with honeysuckle overgrown on it where I hid and snacked in the summer. All gone. (Yes, I creeped over the fence to look in their backyard, sorry!)

The one thing I CAN point out is that the pine tree on the left side of the house in the back was there when I was a kid. I’d climb up there with a cassette player and a book to get away from my family for hours at a time. So at least one of my formative kid-plant-friend survives, as does a marker of my introverted personality.

The same perspective thing happened when I got to my grandparents’ home, too. I definitely remembered it as being WAY bigger than I saw it is now.

But then I remembered how there were always turtles living in the bathtub and orphaned squirrels in cages in the foyer, and how I’d find my Easter baskets in the backyard and how my grandma would cook Perogi and my poppy would watch “Hee-Haw” and, at the time, I thought the show was SO trashy. And I wondered if there still were sketches of horses in the backyard concrete that my aunt drawn as a kid herself. (No, I did NOT sneak in their backyard to look. But I thought about it!)

So, even though these places were different than I thought they’d be looking on them as an adult, there were so many memories that rose up just from experiencing them in real life - Of cars we drove and pets we owned and furniture I slept in, of fights and celebrations and feeling loved as a kid. It all came back in trickles, tying me back to who I used to be. And it felt good to gather myself more through that process.

It’s interesting to think about the things we remember from childhood, what becomes formative and what’s disposed of. My family didn’t have any money to go on vacations as a kid, so my memories are mainly about plants and animals and outdoor time and holidays. And I wonder now, with my own kid, if I need to get her outside more and plant some blackberry bushes, because I don’t think when she’s forty she’s going to bring up Goat Simulator and be reminded of great childhood moments as easily as experiencing things in real life. We have to store memories in order to store ourselves somewhere. Are we storing them when we’re not physically THERE? Sure as hell not, right?

Anyway, I also drove to see my grandparents’ grave, which was touching and sad. But my grandpa’s side has an atom on it for his physics, and my grandma’s has a butterfly for her love of nature, which was a lovely tribute.

Then I went to get the best BBQ I could remember at Greenbriar’s Restaurant. (IT HOLDS UP!)

And finally, I ended the nostagia-rama trip with a peek at the school where I attended grade school, at eight years old. They burned money in the chapel one day in front of all the kids and my mom immediately pulled me out upon hearing about it and homeschooled me after that until college. Hope they don’t do that anymore! :D

After the jaunt through my past, I decided to do one thing for fun. I went to Lowe Mill, an artist conglomerate in central Huntsville. Ya’ll this place is so special. It’s a converted industrial mill filled with floor after floor of artist studios/shops. It’s HUGE!

It has everything from fine oil painters to soap makers to dice makers.

Art camps for kids and adults, pinball galleries and meaderies (that’s right MEAD!).

It is an artsy nerd’s dream space. Honestly, I wanted to rent a studio immediately. Alas, I don’t live there anymore, but if you’re ever in the area, check it out! It wasn’t actually the shops in Lowe Mill that were inspiring, it was the artists visiting each other, selling their stuff and offering lessons. It was the community. Oh yeah, there was a blacksmith, too. Amazing.

The whole experience of remembering my past and falling in love with this artist space made me excited to GROW again. I’ve been feeling stuck, especially in my career, and I was reminded by my experiences in Huntsville that art can be about money, but it can also be about connections. On this trip I remembered all my grandma’s oil paintings stacked everywhere in her living room, and drawing with my mom, and doing theatre just for the fun of it, not just as a career. And I realized what I’m missing: growing with others through making things.

We’re all connected through memories and art, and those connections have to be maintained and grown for US to grow. So yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m taking an oil painting class. Just for me. Just to be around other people, making art, for fun. Thanks for the inspiration, Huntsville.

PS:

I told you I would come back to the car rental story. Long story short, I was too cheap to rent an Uber to get to the car rental company, walked there instead, veered into a ditch to avoid a car because Google Maps took me down a dirt road to get there, got unknowingly exposed to poison ivy, and now I’ve been itching in agony for two weeks. So…Alabama, you got some good qualities, but your greenery suxxxxxx! )

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Interesting Links:

• Actual GOOD cottage cheese pancakes recipe. YES THEY ARE GOOD.

• “Cheery” news about how everything you do is being tracked and targeted, but NO the phone isn’t listening to you.

• Practice typing by writing out a classic novel at this website. Very cool.

• These city guides are great for food, I endorse the LA choices!

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Personal Links (Also Interesting):

• My Twitch streaming schedule remains the same, 2x a week, erratic timing, but mostly Monday and Friday 1-4pm PST. Come by and hang with me.

• My movie “Tim Travers and the Time Travelers Paradox” will be in theaters soon and on streaming!!! NY and LA beginning May 30 with national screenings in the weeks to follow. Follow the movie’s IG for all the dates and deets!

• I did a voice in the new audio genre drama “Last Wardens”, Anjali Bhimani, Mark Meer, Ginny Di, Shiva Negar and Matthew Watterson are in it. Very fun!!

• I was procrastinating from writing recently lol and made a Shop My page so if you wanna see what I use on my face and in my house, this is the place.

• My summer cons are up, not many of them, but check my website for my schedule as I add more (maybe).

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See you in two weeks, and on my Discord channel in between for chatting and friendship! <3

oxox
Felicia