Hi,

We’ll get back to the heavy, bleak, important stuff again soon enough — but today, headings towards the weekend, something a little lighter.

Most of us have pretty strong memories attached to our childhood home. I’d love to think that those memories are positive and warm for everyone, but of course that’s not the case. Some people probably want to never think about that shit again.

I was one of the lucky ones. I think back and I remember a lot of warmth. My dad was a veterinarian and so my childhood home was full of animals. There were ducks in the bath, kittens roaming the lounge, and Frisky the goat bleating like murder for attention. I think of the VHS player that I’d use to record late night X-Files episodes so I could watch them the next morning before school, and how I’d lick the cake mix out of the bowl that my mum used to make one of her amazing chocolate cakes.

At the time, your childhood home is your entire universe. It’s the centre of your existence as your brains developed into you. But while your home so important to you at the time — nobody else gives a shit.

There is a simple fact: Your home is yours, and yours alone.

But what if your childhood home wasn’t just yours. What if everyone had a connection to the place you grew up in, to the point where if you told them what house you grew up in, they’d look at you like you were the crazy one.

A few weeks ago, I met a woman who knew exactly what I was talking about.

David.

When Macaulay Culkin Moves In

The Beginning

“I grew up in a town called Winnetka, which is quite small. You can make it sound even smaller by describing the number of streetlights that exist in Winnetka, which you can. You can count on one hand.”

I’m talking to Lauren Abendshien, who’s holding her hand up in front of me as if to prove her point. I counted five fingers.

“It’s a very quiet, safe neighborhood where you see a lot of families with younger children because of those qualities. And it has a nice neighborhood feel.”

Winnetka is a small village of just over 10,000 people, about a 30 minute drive north of Chicago. Lauren loved growing up in Winnetka, but she hasn’t been back in over a decade.

“You know, I don’t go back. And not because I disliked it. I didn’t. I had a really wonderful experience growing up. But I don’t go back largely because… the house in which I grew up. I just like to hold those memories as they were.”

I ask her to state, for the record, where she grew up.

“So I grew up in the Home Alone house. That’s where I grew up.”