I am astonished by what came flooding back. Astonished and inspired, and slightly pissed at myself for spending the last two hours walking virtually through my childhood neighborhood using Google Maps.
But listen: I traced the path I walked with Mom on my way to preschool, found the Walgreens where she bought me my "bubble bath Barbie" (speak of brand loyalty! I still remember she had a miniature yellow bottle of Johnson&Johnson Baby Shampoo), and the laundromat we used (once) to dry our clothes after the dryer broke, the evening Dad held the first prayer meeting at our house. I walked to the church we used to attend (by memory!), and then cut through the alley to get to the playground where I told a boy that he was killing his cat by feeding her "Friskas" brand dry food.
I crossed the green bridge (over the polluted, snake-infested river we used to swim in, until Mom learned English and read the sign: "Posted: Stay OUT!") and drove to the Family Dollar near CVS, and then came back and swung by my first elementary school (Tamila was right--there IS an outline of the fifty states on the playground blacktop!). I walked down Main Street, where I remember walking with Mom, eating a Subway sandwich that I had gotten for free with the "Student of the Month" voucher my teacher gave me.
So my childhood happened after all. Somehow this tour only enhanced the magic of my memories, rather than demystifying them. The "street view," after all, can only show you what a stranger sees from the road. The rest--the backyard, the railroad tracks on the hill, the bedroom walls covered in tiny holes from tacks--are hidden from view, and filled in only through the eyes of my eight-year-old self, through the snapshots she stored up before we moved.
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