This essay originally posted 02.22.2004

This quiet life, with the radio on, the room fills up with old friends.

My 8-year-old self sprawls on the living room rug watching my parents and their friends grow flushed with dinner and wine, spoofing the accents, laughing mirthfully through their noses. We live here, but we’re not from here; the scripts of derision and longing are tailor made for us, outsiders looking in.

Seven years later, a ghostly face reflects back at me from the black glass surface of the oven door, the eerie stove light serves up the sole luminescence in that dark November kitchen. I stand alone here, pulling a child’s cardigan closer around my ribs, seeking distraction in the music.

At 28, another rug, another living room floor where a man I was married to doubles over laughing at the notion of mournful oatmeal, Calvinism in a bowl while I, twenty feet away, sauté onions and garlic in a wok. Two years later in a rented bungalow, my 19-year-old roommate joins in on the Saturday night ritual, teasing me nonetheless for my cornball sense of humor.

I brought them all with me here, to this bustling borough where friends are family now. My wireless relatives, over the years, have changed in face and name and timber, though some remain the same. Continuity in voice and song, a virtual family album, the pieces of me called home to my heart when I turn my radio on.