Children’s Bookend Lamp

How To Live In Your Childhood Home

Caspian Von Lattorff ‘26

This piece represents childhood books and the old whimsical art style. As the lamp turns on, the light shines through, adding an almost heavenly glow to the proper lampshade.

Walk through the door and pretend that the scent of your childhood home, the aroma of pure warmth, doesn’t remind you of the memories pressed deeply into the walls covered in pictures — pictures of times you don’t quite remember, but wish you did. Wake up every morning, fill your nose with the spice of maple coffee, and try not to think about when mom used to make it for you every day of virtual school. Your wooden bookshelf, still untouched from childhood, every single Junie B. Jones’s book, worn out and tattered, every book Mom would read you to sleep with. Pictures of Dad, with clear skin, no wrinkles, no cancer, hair still bright blonde, beard still a deep red, like the background of the portrait hung in your room – the painting of a woman, pale skin, and blue mint hair, laced with traces of silver, swimming in the swirls of the ocean around her. The painting you would stare at in Mom and Dad’s room, before there were any phones or late nights with friends, the painting that would come alive when your imagination was still awake and your childlike curiosity was so far from fading away. Try not to think about how hopeful you used to be. The dinner table where we would eat, every night at 6, with mom and dad and your sister, now covered with mail from colleges, mom’s notes from your college advisor, seeing where you’ll be sent off to, somewhere far from here, far from home. Try not to scare yourself with the fact that you aren’t as scared to leave this state as you thought you would be. Because there aren’t any more family dinners. Because you don’t get off of work until 7:30, and by that time, mom and dad have already eaten by the TV. Because your sister has her own life, in a completely different city, and you barely speak. Because she is a constant reminder of what once was. Because you have outgrown your childhood home, although it served its purpose, it’s full of past lives and the ghosts of when life was simple. Walk out the door, let the scent linger with the fresh outside air, but let it disappear as you keep walking, until the golden light from the windows is nothing but a glimmer in your peripheral vision.

Ayan Payne ‘25

This poem is focused around nostalgia and how it impacts you as you grow up. This piece explores the feelings that living in your childhood home can evoke. Being ready to grow up and leave home can cause conflicting feelings, so I hope this piece can be relatable to somebody.