Yesterday, I found myself at home. Not just within its walls, but within its essence—wrapped in echoes soft and known, in a silence that was not empty but full. The air carried a golden glow, thick with light and thick with whispers, the kind that float from years behind, settling quietly into the present.
It was not the kind of silence that weighed heavy on the heart, nor the kind that ached with absence. It was a quiet that hummed, that stayed—a familiar presence rather than an emptiness. It was the stillness of memory, where even the air seemed to breathe in unison with the past.
The rustling leaves tapped gently at my windowpane, a rhythm that belonged to my childhood. Like fingers drumming against wood, they played a melody I had long forgotten but instantly recognized. The hum of the ceiling fan above me, the metallic click of the front gate swinging shut, the creak of the swing that had stood in the same spot for years—each sound layered upon another, forming a symphony of nostalgia.
As I stood there, time folded in on itself.
I remembered summers spent barefoot on sun-warmed floors, the scent of mangoes lingering in the air. I remembered the sand clinging to my skin, my footprints being chased away by eager waves at the shore. The taste of salt in the wind, the endless stretch of the sky—back then, the world felt infinite, its boundaries defined only by the edges of my curiosity.
I remembered the way laughter carried effortlessly, unburdened by the weight of growing up. The way stories unfolded under the covers, whispered between friends and siblings, with torchlight flickering like fireflies trapped in a jar. The secrets we swore to keep, the promises we believed would never fade.
The floors beneath my feet had not changed. Wooden and steady, they had borne the weight of my small, running steps, the shuffle of my mother’s slippers, the firm tread of my father’s late-night pacing. I had dined at this very table, had spilled juice on its polished surface, had sat cross-legged on its chairs, swinging my feet as I listened to conversations that once seemed mundane but now felt like relics of another life.
Memory is strange. It does not preserve life in its entirety but in flashes, in glimpses of things that matter in ways we do not always understand. I do not remember every meal I had at this table, but I remember the warmth of shared dinners, the clinking of glasses, the soft murmur of voices that made the house feel alive. I do not remember every sunset I watched from this window, but I remember the way the light stretched across the walls, turning the ordinary into something magical.
And so, I stood there, surrounded by the pieces of my past—not whole, not linear, but glowing in the corners of my soul. They were blurred at the edges, softened by time, yet vivid where it mattered.
There is a place in all of us where time stands still. A place where we are still children, still laughing, still running barefoot through summer afternoons. A place where echoes do not fade but remain, where the past is not something we leave behind but something we carry within us.
And yesterday, I found myself there once more.