My Calm Place

At yoga class, we're frequently instructed to got to our "calm place". I used to dread these words, because I couldn't think of my calm place. I would say to myself, "I'm at yoga. This is my calm place!" Then I would start thinking about how unhealthy it was to not have a calm place, and wondering what everyone else's calm place was, and things would just go downhill from there. The instructor must have noticed my internal panic one day, because she came over and told me, "Think of a place where you have nothing but warm feelings for. A place that glows like a candle in your memory." And there it was. My calm place.

Jason and I moved into the West Married Apartments at Harding about 2 weeks after our wedding. I think the actual date was somewhere around August 9th. It was HOT, and it was just the two of us moving into our second-floor place. I can remember how happy we were, setting it all up, arranging our things into our place. It wasn't new, or fancy, but it was our first place, and recalling our time there is like taking a long bubble bath: warm, deep, and so tranquil it almost hurts.

We lived there for two years, and so I know we fought there. I even remember throwing a hair clip at Jason one time. But I don't remember any of those fights. I remember staring out the balcony window, watching for him to come home. I remember the look on his face the first time he broke one of our plates. I remember the pet turtle we kept on the balcony. Sundays after church, we'd crawl into bed to take marathon naps, the deep naps of two married college students who each worked 40 hours a week. When I got off work on Saturdays, I would come home to a sparkling clean apartment and a delicious meal. For a time one summer, we ran together every night. I went all out with Christmas decorations, and even though I know now how hideous it looked, I thought it was beautiful then. Dancing in the living room, laughing as we did the dishes... it was such a place of joy for us.

The joy of that old apartment extended to our friends and family as well. I remember our friends, always in and out, eating, playing DDR, playing Cranium. Talking/crying with Lydia on the couch. Walking across the street to spend the evening with my best girlfriends. Taking Matt and Lydia's pictures there the night they got engaged. We had Ashley and Michael over for dinner, and I remember that not going so well. Throwing Lydia's shower. We kept Baker, Teen's dog, a time or two there. We also had Lucy there for a day. I know right where we were sitting when Kevin called and told us Lucy was going to be a big sister. I threw our first, and so far only, Christmas dinner party there. I can remember both sets of our parents and their first visits to our apartment. My family gathered there the day I graduated, and I love to recall all of us there, drinking coffee and taking pictures.

I recall standing on the balcony one day, watching Jason walk home on foot. I looked in the opposite direction, and saw a guy on what looked like Jason's normal mode of transportation, his bike. I watched them head for each other, and I looked on as Jason grabbed the bike and threw the thief off of it. He was so brave, and I was so proud to belong to him. I still am.

So that has become my calm place, and now that I have found it, I go there often. Not that I don't have other happy places (my parents house, my grandparents Munsee house), but my calm, warm, tranquil place will forever be West Marrieds A16. I travel there when I can't fall asleep, or when I am feeling overwhelmed. I think a part of me is always there; our life there seeped into the walls, and the memories, anecdotes, and stories belong to the apartment as much as they belong to us. Other people lived there before us, and just one couple since, but that will always be our apartment.