Letters of Thought: Going Home?

"Hey, I Was There!" II

I opened an old Brochos today and noticed that it was an actual print from Almonah V'achim Romm in Vilna . . .

As to the title of this post (No, I did not imply that by finding the sefer I was 'going home' to Vilna)

Rather, today I went to Gardner Street School to see if there were parents interested in signing up their children for Released Time (a state approved program that lets children attending public school learn about their religion once a week) . . . I met a several interesting people, people themselves worthy of a post (I'd like to start writing vignettes about my experiences from time to time . . . more, Bl"n, to come soon), but they are not the subject of this post.
For you see, I lived across the street (but never attended) Gardner Street School during the formative years of my childhood -from four to fourteen.
I've driven by my old home in the past . . . but since moving, I've never spent more then those fleeting few moments on my block.

It seemed almost surreal . . . The house had been repainted, slightly, and the front garden had been changed (save the large bushes around the perimeter) . . . The great mulberry tree was gone . . . yet for the most part all was the same -the diamond window in the front door from which I had once stood on my tippy-toes to see who rang the bell . . . the mailbox which had once received my subscriptions to Ranger Rick . . . the doorknob which I so eagerly turned upon first using my first key to my house . . . the front steps from where my bicycle, the one that still had the training wheels, had been stolen.

I walked around the block upon which I had grown . . . I retraced the once great trek to my friend Artur'chik's house around the corner in a minute's walk . . .
Was I greater, and my world once smaller?
Or, perhaps, my world was once greater, and I even more . . . and now I have shrunken along with my world; my place in it no longer measured by trips to the comic book store, but rather in transatlantic flights.

I stood outside of my house.
Outside of 1545 N. Gardner.
I thought of ringing the front door, perhaps asking for a few moments to look around . . .
But decided against it.
I remember when we moved. My room, once packed with books, with toys, with work desks and model spaceships, was empty . . . The place I had once used as a stage for intergalactic battles and space operas had suddenly become so small, so empty, now that it was devoid of furniture. I had said goodbye to 1545 N. Gardner, and left my memories in its walls, and its walls in my memories.

I worry that if I return, I will find my childhood home even further changed, those memories lost to the 'new' image built in the likeness of the 'new' owner.
Perhaps some day, even soon, I will go inside of 1545 N. Gardner . . . but for now I would rather keep it the way it is . . . an island of time in my mind to whence I can retreat.
Untouched, and untouchable.