That was your apartment? Very cool. That was one of the things I liked most about that scene. It seemed very cozy and if memory serves me well, the ocean could be heard outside; you must have been right on the beach. Nice interior. Did you like living there?
I have this thing about old houses, apartments, I have lived in. There are one or two that stick out in my mind, and when I daydream, I let myself go back to certain rooms, in certain places. Very cathartic. Also, when I visit a city I used to live in, I just about religiously drive by "the old place". Once, I lucked out, upon the prompting of my son, who suggested I should ask at the rental office of an old apartment I used to live in, for the apartment was then empty..if we could look around. The rental agent stared at us, in disbelief, not sure why we would want to do a thing like that, but did give us the keys. It opened a floodgate to all these memories, and it is a very strange, and powerful feeling..I don't know if you have ever experienced this. It feels like you don't belong there anymore, and that you are going back in time, in some ways like you are a ghost returning from the hereafter for a sneak peak at what once was. It is very difficult to describe the feeling, but it is both wonderful and terrible at the same time, filled with joy and a profound sadness as well. Perhaps it has to do with being immediately and somewhat brutally being confronted with your mortality.
I still do it though, now and again. Mostly it's as far as the front door of the old places; this was the first time I actually could go in. I went back to Montreal to my childhood home, and lucked out once again, this past summer. The place was empty, and being renovated, so my brother and I could roam around the grounds..nope, the police were not called.
Anybody else out there, with similar experience of "returning"? That Jackson Browne song, always comes back:
"Well I went to a house I once lived in,
About the time I first went on my own.. "etc. from the song, "Looking into You".
Even better, the Barenaked Ladies song about the "Old Apartment". Love the line where he turns up the TV and jumps on the floor to piss off the downstairs neighbor.... just like old times.
Gene
