My Favorite Place: Childhood

My grandma's house is flat, safe, and predictable. There's always cookies, or bars, or pie, less than three days old. There's the rumble of my grandpa's deep, slow voice, unless you hear him snoring away in his favorite reclining chair.

When we arrive, and when we leave, my grandma's hugs always feel the same, always smell the same, and she always says the same kinds of things: "You guys be careful driving home, now!" or "D'you think you could take this trash out with you? If it's no trouble, I mean..."

The yard and the town are the same every time we visit, with slight adjustments made with changes in the season. Snow is always white and untouched before our arrival, and full of footprints and muck by the time we leave. In the summer, dandelions litter every yard within view, no matter how well cared for the lawn might be.

There's always something going on, usually instigated by my grandma. She rarely sits, flitting about like a hummingbird in a box. She rushes from room to room, maknig sure everyone is comfortable. My mom always tells her to take it easy, but this regularly backfires.

Response to The Names: A Memoir by N. Scott Momaday

"In the white light a whirlwind moves far out in the plain, and afterwards there is something like a shadow on the grass, a tremor, nothing. There seems a stillness at noon, but that is an illusion: the landscape rises and falls, ringing."

I liked this phrase because it describes a setting in an extremely detailed manner, then strips it all away, as if the author is trying to convince himself of the wonders of this place, not the reader. The line "...there is something like a shadow...a tremor, nothing" is almost contradictory as it illustrates a feeling of self-doubt on the part of the author, displaying the emotions brought up by the scene instead of the emotions of the scene itself. The following line, however, is contrastingly redundant: "There seems a stillness at noon, but that is an illusion..." This emphasizes the unknown quality of the plain, the mystery of the effects of the whirlwind.