KAREN REAL

There are places that hold every version of you.

This is one of mine. I grew up coming here almost every weekend. And somehow, every time I come back, a part of me is still a little girl.

Back then, everything felt bigger. The pool. The mountains. The walks between the coffee and orange trees.

Even the tiny path to the “chocolate house” my dad used to tell us about felt like an adventure deep into the forest. It was probably only a few steps away.

My brother and I would sit on the little terrace coloring while watching the rain.

We would arrive after a long drive, run straight to the pool and jump into the freezing water with our clothes still on.

There were always animals around. Horses I would spend hours with and sometimes even fall asleep beside. Movies in the living room. My grandmother’s lemonade. So many ordinary things that somehow became memories.

And then you grow up. You leave. You build a life somewhere else.

And one day you come back and realize that while this place feels exactly as you remember it, time has been moving everywhere else.

We are older now. My dad is older. My grandfather has more wrinkles. And my grandmother is no longer here to make the lemonade I remember.

That is the strange thing about coming back. Because somehow, the moment I am here, time feels suspended again.

The mountains are still there. The trees seem to remember. The house holds stories no photograph ever could. And suddenly, all those versions of us exist in the same place.

The children we were. The people we became. The people who were once here with us. Maybe that’s why some places never feel like just places. They become little archives of our lives. They remember things for us.

And every time I come back here, for a little while, I feel like I get to visit the girl I used to be. 🤎