Housewarming

It's a strange sort of nostalgia.
Ha-dadu's farmhouse. I remember coming home to this place when I was much younger. The split levels. My underground bedroom, the enormous kitchen, too many ways to enter the house.
And ha-dadu on the divan in the verandah. I'm told I called him that ever since I was two. Ever since I heard his deep, throaty laugh. Ha ha ha.
With ha-dadu gone, it wasn't the same. The house seemed hugely hollow and we moved into a smaller, more manageable place just next door.

So the new house and the old house and ma's montessori were all in the same compound, but the old house was eventually ignored.
I'd walk friends around the place pointing to where my old room was.
Underground, I'd explain, recalling how Z used to think the place was haunted when we were kids.

Recently, ma decided she actually liked the old place and wanted to move back. But not without some major changes. I missed the renovation while it was underway and came back to a 'new' old house.

I walked through ha-dadu's place trying to remember where exactly things used to be; turning corners and climbing stairs that never were. My room isn't underground anymore but it's bright and cosy.
We're all a little wobbly; still finding our feet. Deciding where to put paintings, rearranging the furniture, arguing about whether the gramophone and valve radio stay or go. (Baba and I want them on display while ma's made extra room in a large closet.) We're still wondering how to fill up all this space.

In all this madness, it still hasn't registered that I might only be passing through. Stopping here on my way to elsewhere.
But in all this madness I've thought to myself more than once -- it's good to be home.