It's funny... I remember this place being a whole lot bigger. The halls were longer, staircase wider, furniture much larger. Standing here now...I feel a bit like Alice after taking a nibble of the cake marked "eat me." I guess it's kind of silly to think a house and everything in it
(more) would grow up too. Everything in this place has aged twenty years in my absence, yet it all looks so brand new. Like I'm seeing it all for the first time. I guess, in a way, I am. Calling my mother's decorating style "eclectic" was putting it mildly. When I lived here, "tacky" was among my many choices of words to describe it. It never occurred to me that it might have hurt her feelings until now. So many things probably hurt her feelings. Leaving the way I did all those years ago most likely tops the list. Now I stand here...inside, just across the threshold of a place and standing right in front of a woman, that I could not wait to get as far away from as humanly possible. So many thoughts...so many feelings... but only one word...beautiful.(less)