It's a work in progress.

Here's a paper I'm in the process of writing for a class. I just wanted some feedback, so please feel free to comment. We had to pick a place and connect it with some sort of spirituality. My basic idea is home as a static figure against which i measure my own growth. And if you don't get that out of it when you read it, let me know.

Angela Toomer
Spiritual Autobiography
Wranovix
Home
Walking through the door of 40 Chimney Sweep, carrying my purse over my shoulder and a duffel bag in my hand, I can expect to see quite a few faces immediately after walking in. I’m thankful that rarely have to walk into an empty house; more than likely one of my five siblings will be there, and I’ll probably get a hug from one of my little sisters, the best kind of hug, the kind that knocks you down, one filled with laughter and devoid of inhibition. It will probably be a little sticky, with some syrup from the pancakes they had this morning stuck in their curly red hair. Granted, this might be a little different, considering how my two littlest sisters are now seven and ten—past the syrup-in-hair stage. That’s another thing, how being away for so long makes me forget that they’re growing, getting older, learning how to write in cursive.
Coming home also brings my attention to the fact that they are not the only ones who are getting older, changing—it’s me, too. My hair is longer, I have some new clothes my family hasn’t seen before, along with new ideas and perspectives, many of which my parents are wary of. My house is the same, though. It reflects my mom’s spirituality: there’s a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the mantle, an icon depicting the Virgin Mary holding Jesus on the wall by the bathroom, along with various other religious statues, candles, and prayer books—or Catholic voodoo, depending on which way you look at it. These testaments to her spirituality have been around for as long as I can remember. They are part of a spirituality that I was expected to inherit, and now it’s obvious that I did not, in fact, adopt it as my own, and I wonder whether this direction has disappointed my mother. Now, I feel out of place standing in the same pews where I stood for my First Communion, left out of this life, one of rosaries and folded hands and signs of the cross. The only thing left is a faith that I can only claim halfway. A part of me wants to pick up my old Bible on the shelf in my room that has been untouched, gathering dust for the past few years. But it’s the same part of me that wants to pick up the Judy Blume books that are next to the Bible: that part that craves nostalgia and a reconnection with a simpler mind frame. That’s not to say that a part of my religious heritage hasn’t stuck with me, though. Just as my name is engraved into the bottom left hand corner of that Bible, there are certain parts of my religious upbringing that can’t be scraped out of the corners of my soul. I can still say all the prayers I learned in second grade by heart, and the words “Bless me Father, for I have sinned” are still filed away somewhere in the back of my mind.
Coming home reminds me that I’ve definitely changed, though, and am continuing to change. As I look around, at the wooden table in the kitchen, with some crumbs still lingering from this morning’s breakfast, and the TV blaring cartoons in the next room, it strikes me again how my house is still exactly the same as it was last time I was here. Every book and piece of furniture and doorway reminds me of a various, specific memory, the kind that are so crucial in my growing up that they are as clear, and sometimesas heart-wrenchingly painful, or embarrassing, or cliché adolescent, as they were on the day they happened. These memories come with smells, tastes, feelings. I’m proud of them, in a way; I claim them as my own, as pieces of evidence that display that yes, I have grown up, and it has not always been easy. I think of the songs I played on repeat in my room, and the boy who picked me up for my first date, and the connections between the all the high school songs and all the high school boys. Every time I come home, I feel like I did when I used to measure my height on the wall of the laundry room. My house is now the measuring stick that shows me how far I’ve come. I stand tall with my back against the wall and make another pencil mark each time I go home. It shows me that I’m in transition. I can see where I’ve been, look at that mark on the wall that I made last Christmas, or maybe when I came home from Labor Day weekend, and be reminded that each time I come home, I’m a little different.

The end.

I think my problem with it is that it's not as concrete as I'd like it. It's all a little abstract, which is boring. I think I'm putting too much pressure on myself to get a good grade, it's like getting a good review, it's like crack. So addicting.