The memories of my childhood are punctuated with special moments shining like trophies in the glass case of memory. Occasionally I like to visit them, take them out of the case and dust them off. In doing so, I often forget that the memory is just a recording. I cannot go back to those places and times. However, that hasn’t stopped me from trying.
In my adult years on those special days, I would go back to the old neighborhood looking for something. Considering everyone was gone, I didn’t know what it was. Everyone had long since moved away or died. Even the stores, movie theaters, arcades and all the other places I built my resume upon were gone, replaced by something new and different for new generations to build their memories upon.
Still, I’d haunt the old corners, blocks and avenues looking for some fabric remnant of the past for comfort. Perhaps, at the time I thought the past was more appealing than the present and the unwritten future.
Years ago, I wrote a piece called The Custodian Of Nothing, an autobiographical account of those moments of silent yearning. Every July 4 the Custodian would make the rounds of the old neighborhood in search of. He’d always come home with less than he left. There were no answers to unknown questions. Just that constant hole where something warm and fuzzy should be.
I/he also wanted to make something of the holiday, to take advantage of empty city streets while everyone was on vacation somewhere and to be in the center of all the action. I’d always wanted to be on a boat in the harbor to see the fireworks. Long gone were the days of blowing up the neighborhood with the kids (and my father).
I woke up this July 4th expecting that same feeling: that combination of emptiness, yearning, excitement and want to celebrate but it wasn’t there. I sat outside and listened to the overwhelming quiet (overwhelming for Brooklyn, anyway). There was no urge to do anything but sit there and listen. My mind wandered to other places I could be like climbing the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains with its sagebrush smell and winding trails.
Perhaps the Custodian has finally retired. Maybe it’s aging or boredom. Perhaps it’s just looking forward to newer chapters of a future with more possibility than before.
I polished the trophies, put them back in the case and walked into my day with no other plan than to simply be.
Tom Serafini is a writer, illustrator, motivator of dreamers from Brooklyn, New York. His first illustrated picture book, Ollie Bug and the Icky Sticky Thing From Space, will be funded through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign coming soon.
If you enjoyed this article give it a share and subscribe to my newsletter for exclusive stories, art, writing tips and motivation.
