A Place Called Home
This winter I was up north in San Jose and San Francisco for a weekend. Every year I go up to the city I actually call “Home," San Jose. For the past twenty-five years, I visit family and not once have I asked or seen where I was born, where we used to experience all the crazy stories I would hear growing up.
While on the road on the five north freeway, I asked my father, "Can you take me to the places I experienced as a kid for the first time?" I think I caught him off guard because not once have I ever asked where we used to live or take me to these places. The older I get I realize it is not the material things you have in life that shape you who you are, but the places, people, and cultures experiences that make the person you are.
As we arrived in San Jose, my father took me to the place I started my journey called “Life,” Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center. It is weird to think hospitals have such a negative vibe, but It is the first place we experience in our lives. While looking at pictures, I see the joy in my father’s eyes (even though he wanted a daughter first) and the day I met the love of my life and the one woman that will always have my heart, my best friend, my mother.
We continued our trip before getting to my uncle’s house, we stopped by the house I spent the first two months of my life. After about seven hours of being on the road, we saved the rest of our tour for the next day.
I woke up the next day with the clouds getting ready to rain on our parade, but that wasn’t going to stop me. We started driving and we took a road, where it lead to a golf course and park my dad used to take me on his days off that had the view of the whole city before taking me to the apartment I experienced most of my memories in.
As we reached our destination, The Capitol Manor Apartments were where I grew to love many things. Some of those things are my father’s pancakes and banana milk, the love of photography as I was his favorite subject, the bond with my mother, the 1989 Loma Pieta Earthquake that shook the Bay Area and the love I grew for my little sister was all part of the memories.
As I walked towards Apartment 211, all the pictures, stories, the journey and progression of where it all started, all just flashes through my head. As a moment, I stay quite and think about my future goals, family and future stories I will tell my kids and grandkids. Times like my parents stacking up a mountain of empty formula jars I would drink my first year to getting one of the most precious Christmas gift of them all, my baby sister, all those wonderful memories were experienced in that home.
After an emotional ten to fifteen minutes, we wrapped up our tour by going to the bakery my parents loved and the same bakery that made my first birthday cake. As you walk into Peters’ Bakery, you can feel the love of the family tradition, the freshness of their dough and scent of the fruits building an aroma in the air as they just come out of the oven and ready for consumption. My father ordered the same cake he had ordered 27 years ago that my family would enjoy, the famous Peters’ Bakery Burnt Almond Cake.
I'm not a fan of almonds, but this was a great exception for me. That burnt almond cake, it was so delicious, the chopped up almonds on top of the cake really adds a subtle flavor and high texture to contrast the light and fluffy cake. As Peters’ Bakery celebrates their 79 years, I toasted to the last 27 years for the place I call “Home.”